All These Lives
by Miss Higher Power
Summary: A collection of stories written for prompts left at the PuckRachel Drabble Meme on LJ.
1. Daddy's Home

Here's the thing: he's a badass. And it took him a while to figure this out, but there's a difference between being a badass and being just an ass. Part of being a badass is being a man, and part of being a man is taking care of the people you love.

"_We're getting married." He tells her._

"_Excuse me?" _

"_You heard me. We're getting married. I'm not having another bastard baby."_

"_That's a terrible thing to say."_

"_S'how I feel."_

"_So basically you're just trying to protect your reputation. This has nothing to do with me at all."_

"_Fuck, it has everything to do with you! You're mine and I'm yours. Why the hell wouldn't we get married?"_

Noah is a good husband and a fantastic father. Right from the very beginning he's taken care of her. She knows that she doesn't need a man to take care of her. She would have been just fine all on her own, but sometimes it's nice to be able to rely on him.

She heard stories when she was pregnant with their daughter about fathers that wouldn't deal with their children until they turned five and could carry on full conversations or that were disappointed when they got a daughter instead of a son. Then there were the dads that couldn't be relied upon for any sort of support, fathers that were in essence another child. She worried about Noah with his love of Mario Kart and his fight club.

_He's been quiet since they were told they're having a little girl. He had said that he didn't care what they had as long as the baby was healthy, but she's beginning to wonder if he really did want a son but didn't want to hurt her feelings. _

_This morning he left the house before she was even awake. On Saturdays they usually go for breakfast before running errands together and then coming home and either watching a movie or catching up on any shows they missed during the week. Even before they got married, when they were living in different apartments, they always spent the day together. _

_He comes home around 3:30 with an SUV full of stuff. She doesn't know what to make of the mountain of boxes and bags piled inside their front door._

"_I didn't know how you felt about pink. Like you wear it, but I didn't know if you had like some feminist reason for not wanting it around the baby. So I picked, like, a dark pink. And purple. In case you don't like the pink."_

"_What are you talking about?"_

"_Paint." He's looking at her like she should know what he's talking about. "For the baby's room."_

"_What?"_

"_Well, I figure now we know what we're havin', we can get started. I got a ton of cool shit." He rummages around in a bag and pulls out a football, a Barbie, and a stuffed Muppet. "They make everything in pink. Pink football. And I know there's like an argument about girls and Barbies but I think it's a bunch of bullshit and as long as we like make sure she has a healthy body whatever she'll be fine. And this little Sesame Street chick. She like does magic."_

"_You're not mad." It's not quite a question, not quite a statement. He notices the tears in her eyes._

"_About what?" _

"_That we're having a girl." _

"_I told you I didn't care what we had. She's just gotta be healthy and happy."_

He's determined to be the best father he can be. They've got two kids with a third on the way. Their daughter, Sophie, is six, and their son, Max, is three. And he's got a feeling about the little one. It's gonna be a girl. He can feel it.

Being a dad is all about the little things. He changes diapers, does feedings and baths. He helps with homework. He's there for playtime, but also for discipline.

The most badass feeling in the world is knowing that there's three people (four) that depend on him. He loves parking in his driveway and hearing his wife or one of his kids yell out, "Daddy's home."

Today it's Max. He's waiting at the screen door, with his little face and hands pressed against the glass. He scoops Max up as he comes through the door, tucking him under his arm and laughing at his son's squeal of delight.

He heads into the kitchen where Rachel is working on dinner and Sophie's doing homework. His wife gives him a kiss and his daughter looks up from her homework and says, "Hi, Daddy," before going back to it. She's very serious about homework. It's first grade but he thinks it's awesome that she's so smart, so Rachel.

He helps Rachel finish dinner and helps Sophie with her math. While Rachel sets the table, he makes sure Max and Sophie wash their hands.

They eat dinner like they always do. Sophie sits next to him and Max next to Rachel, each responsible for one child. Sophie tells them about a reading contest at her school. Max tells them about the difference between real and "maple leaf". He, Rachel and Sophie just about kill themselves laughing, while Max just looks confused.

He can't think of anything more badass than this life he's got now.


	2. Do You Think I Look Fat?

They've got a sweet thing going on.

Puck and Rachel ended up in Boston together. She was determined to leave high school behind. Unfortunately, that meant him too. Which at first he thought was cool, but then it kinda sucked that his friend (yeah, threw him for a loop too) basically didn't want anything to do with him.

So he just started showing up at her place all the time. And Rachel's too nice to make him stand outside in the Boston cold for too long. All her friends loved him, so then she had a hard time telling him not to come back.

It didn't take long until they were back to being friends, and then they were best friends, and then they started sleeping together.

They sleep together three or four times a week and she was always at his place, so when her lease was up, it just made sense for her to move in with him.

But she's not like clingy or anything, which he kinda thought she would be. He lives his life and she lives hers. They just choose to do most things together, but she doesn't go all bitch chick on him when he wants to do stuff by himself, and he doesn't get all possessive when she wants to do stuff by herself.

So they do everything together, live in the same place and fuck like clockwork. He guesses they're like dating or whatever.

So when she starts getting all girly, he doesn't know what the fuck to think.

Like she wants to watch girly stuff on TV and she's pretty damn insistent that he watch with her. Even the non-girly stuff that they watch together she manages to make girly. He seriously comes home one day to find her crying on the couch. And not her usual cute little watery eyes, but like full on hysterical crying. He legit thought someone had died.

Rachel was crying because Joe and Alison were fighting on Medium and Joe was sleeping on the couch. She was actually crying over Medium. That show freaked her the fuck out or made her laugh, 'cause even he'll tell you those kids are hilarious (and kinda cute), but it's never made her cry.

That's not the only thing she cries over. The waterworks are non-stop.

Rachel's a staff actor with a local theatre company, and she's always super exhausted when they're doing rehearsals for a new show, but she finds some sorta balance once the show actually starts. So it wasn't like unusual for her to be napping every day when they were doing their rehearsals for The Sound of Music, but when she was still napping like four weeks into the show, Puck thought it was weird.

Then she starts in with the weird questions.

"Does this taste funny?" and "Can't you taste something metallic?" just seem weird.

But then she's getting dressed one morning, and he sees her examining herself in the mirror. He knows it's coming the minute she frowns at herself in the mirror and the turns to him.

"Do you think I look fat?"

"Oh, hell no. Don't even start in with that shit."

"Noah, this is a serious question."

"This is not a serious question. This is you trying to trick me. If I say you look fat, you're mad at me and I end up sleeping on the couch. If I say you don't look fat, you accuse me of lying and I end up sleeping on the couch. I lose either way." When Rachel's lip starts to quiver, he feels bad, but then he thinks about all the shit she's been pulling lately and he just gets mad. If she's trying to change their relationship, she's doing it the wrong way. "Look, I've gotta go to work. Try not to be a basket case when I get home."

* * *

><p>Puck is pissed at Rachel all morning. Little, old, Mrs. Wong is probably never coming back. Who wants a massage therapist that does you more harm than good?<p>

Where the hell does Rachel get off trying to change their relationship? They've been doing fine the way they are. And why couldn't she just grow a pair and talk to him about it, instead of doing her weird Rachel thing and trying to trick him into admitting that he's her boyfriend.

He likes that they don't have a label on it. She's his Rachel and he's her Noah. Who cares what the fuck they call it? It's not like he's not her boyfriend, he just thinks at 30 he's a little too old to be called a boyfriend. He makes jokes about their relationship not being serious, but it's way more serious than her being his girlfriend. Hell would have to freeze over before he'd let their relationship end, and even then…

* * *

><p>He runs across the street to grab his lunch at 1:00. He's sitting there eating his sandwich, still pissed at Rachel, and watching this family across the room.<p>

There's a mom with a baby and a kid that looks like he's maybe three. Every time the mom turns to deal with the baby, the older kid tries to make a break for it. Puck thinks it's fuckin' hilarious. His mom'll just get him back into his chair and as soon as she turns back to the baby, the kid's chubby little legs are sliding out of the chair.

When the baby starts to cry, the mom's attention is solely on her daughter, and the boy is out of his chair and halfway to the door before Puck scoops him up and takes him back to his mom.

Once he's back at his table, finishing his lunch, it hits him like a ton of bricks. All the crying and napping, the weird tastes, thinking she looks fat. He's totally knocked Rachel up.

He'd ditch his clients for the afternoon, but he's thinking he's gonna be needing the money.

* * *

><p>Puck's out the door the second his last client has left. He's so fuckin' excited he can barely stand it. He can't wait to tell Rachel. He wonders if this is what girls feel like when they find out they're pregnant and have to tell their men.<p>

Traffic crawls at a fuckin' snail's pace the entire drive home. When he finally gets home, he takes the front steps two at a time and lets himself into their apartment.

He's about to call out that he's home when he notices her on the couch. She's got her pillow and the giant fleece blanket he gave her for her birthday last year. And fuck, if she needs to sleep, he's gonna let her sleep. She's growing a person, for fuck's sake.

* * *

><p>He's making Rachel dinner, all her favourites, when she wakes up. She's in her cupcake pyjamas and her hair is all messy and she looks totally adorable. She's also completely ignoring him.<p>

She goes to the bathroom and comes back a few minutes later in her fluffy pink bathrobe and with fuzzy socks on her feet. She wanders into the kitchen and grabs a banana. When he goes to kiss her, she ducks out of the way and leaves the kitchen.

He hears her flip the TV on. He gives the food a quick check before heading out into the living room.

"Yo, I gonna get my kiss?" He asks her. She's wrapped back up in the blanket, with her head on the pillow, watching an episode of some '80s sitcom. He sits on the end of the couch and pulls her feet into his lap.

Rachel immediately draws her legs up so she's not touching him at all.

"You don't have to worry about sleeping on the couch tonight. I'll be sleeping out here."

"Jeez, Rach. I'm sorry, okay. You don't usually ask me things like that. You just caught me off guard."

"Your first reaction was to flip out. What are we doing if we can't have serious conversations? I think there might be something wrong with me." Rachel sits up to look at him.

"Rachel…"

"I am very serious, Noah. I'm tired all the time. I'm only making it through half of my program at the gym before I'm simply too exhausted to carry on. That would explain the weight gain except that I'm not really eating that much. Everything tastes funny and I constantly have this metallic taste in my mouth. Plus, I have this headache that just won't go away. Noah, I think I might have a tumour, and I need a little support right now." Her eyes start to mist up as she finishes talking.

He wants to laugh so bad. But he knows that if he does this'll be the only kid he ever has, 'cause Rachel'll legit rip his balls out.

"Rachel, I don't think you have a tumour."

"I know you think I overreact to things. But this has been going on for weeks."

"Rachel, think about all the things you've just told me. You're tired, you're gaining weight, food tastes funny, the taste of metal, and headaches."

"I know. I looked up the symptoms. It's either a tumour or I'm pregnant." He just looks at her and raises his eyebrow. "I can't be pregnant! I'm on the pill."

"Think it's safe to say it didn't work." He smiles at her and all of a sudden her face breaks out into her thousand watt smile and she's laughing through her tears.

"A baby!" Rachel lets Puck pull her closer to him. His hand snakes under her blanket, robe and pyjamas to rest on the warm flesh of her belly.

"A baby." Rachel lets the blanket fall completely and presses her hand over Puck's.

"You know this means you're going to have to admit that I'm your girlfriend?"

"Nah." She looks completely offended, before he pulls her closer and kisses her. "I'm thinking I'm gonna call you my wife."


	3. Dear Diary

He's promised his mom he's going to make an effort this year. He's going to go to classes, actually pay attention, do his homework, and whatever other shit he has to do to make sure he goes to college next year. Noah Puckerman is not spending the rest of his life in Nowhere, Ohio.

So instead of picking a seat at the back of the classroom like he normally would, he drops into the last seat left in the front row. He knows his buddies are going to bust his balls about this, but he doesn't care. He'll be the one laughing next year when they're working at fast food joints and he's…wherever, not living life like a loser.

Once class starts, Mr. Davis tells them that the person they're sitting next to will be their partner for the rest of the year. As he hands out the year's materials, he tells them to get to know their partner for the rest of the class. The real work will start tomorrow.

"I'm Rachel." She says to him once she has all of her class materials organized in her binder.

"Puck."

* * *

><p>Rachel is incredibly nervous. This is her first day at a new school. She doesn't know anyone. It's not that she was particularly popular at her old school, but she had a few friends. People to eat lunch with and pass the day with.<p>

So she feels like she might be off to a good start when she sits next to Noah (he told her to call him Puck, but she refuses) in chemistry class. He's nice and funny, and he hasn't made fun of her for her obvious OCD behavior. It doesn't hurt that he's ridiculously attractive.

* * *

><p>Team tryouts happen at the beginning of the third week of school. Things have been going pretty well so far, and he's hoping that adding sports to his plate isn't going to ruin everything. But it's not like he can just ditch sports to focus on his education. No school is going to look at him without sports with his academic history. His marks kinda sucked balls last year.<p>

But he's doing okay this year. Chem's his worst subject, but he's got Rachel. And she's awesome. Not just at the chem stuff. She kinda reminds him of the chicks in the black and white movies his mom watches. She doesn't put up with his smartass behavior, and she doesn't make fun of the fact that he's clearly a science retard. It doesn't hurt that she's beautiful.

* * *

><p>Rachel feels her stomach drop when she sees Noah with the boys from the basketball team. She knew he was an athlete. She just didn't realize that he was the school's star basketball player. She used to smile and say hello to him in the hallway, but now she just feels awkward. So when Noah passes her in the hallway when she's with Sam from her AP English class, she looks the other way. What could he ever see in a geek like her when he has hot cheerleaders hanging off his every word?<p>

* * *

><p>Puck sees Rachel in the hallway when he's hanging out with his basketball buddies. She usually says hi and smiles her gorgeous smile at him, but she just looks away when she passes him. He should've seen it coming. What would she want with a dumb jock when she can spend time with a smart guy like Sam?<p>

* * *

><p>Chem used to be her favourite class. To be honest, it wasn't really the subject so much as the time with Noah that she loved so much. Now that she knows he's one of the most popular boys in school, she doesn't know what to say to him. They still chat, but mostly they just work. She really misses what they had.<p>

* * *

><p>Chem used to be his subject, even though he was shit awful at it. He just really liked the time with Rachel. Now that she's found new friends and figured out what an idiot he is, he doesn't know what to say to her. They still talk, but mostly she just helps him with his work. He kinda misses her.<p>

* * *

><p>Puck gets a B on his chem midterm, and he knows it's all thanks to Rachel. He wants to show her his exam, but she's slipped from the room by the time he gets over the shock of the good mark.<p>

He finally manages to catch up with her after third period.

"Yo, Rachel." Her head whips around at the sound of her name.

"Hello, Noah."

"I just wanted to say thanks for helping me with my chem. I got a B." Puck holds his exam up for her to see.

"Noah! That's fantastic. I knew you could do it." Rachel flashes him her huge smile and the Rachel that he met at the beginning of the year is back. He looks down and runs his hand over the back of his neck just as he hears someone call his name. He turns around to see Finn and Mike at the end of the hall. "Well, I'll let you get back to your friends."

And just like that it's awkward again. But now that he's had a bit of his Rachel, he's not going to let her disappear again.

"I kinda thought we were friends."

"You don't have to be nice to me just because I helped you with your chem." Rachel tucks her hair behind her ear as she looks to the ground.

"Is that what you think? That I only like you 'cause you're smart?"

"Well, why else would you like me? You're Mr. Popular Athlete, and I'm just the geeky girl you sit next to in class."

"Or you're the pretty girl on the honour roll and I'm just the idiot basketball player that you sit next to in class." Rachel looks up from the floor and glares at him.

"You're not an idiot."

"And you're not a geek. Now are you gonna be my friend or what?"

As she smiles up at him, Puck realizes that now he has to find a way to tell her he wants to be more than friends. But he'll take what he can get. For now.


	4. Happy Father's Day

It had started as a way for his boys to cheer him up after Beth, but it sort of evolved over the years.

Sure, it was a little weird when they were in high school, five teenage dudes celebrating Father's Day, but it worked. They'd get beer from somewhere, get piss-ass drunk, and play video games.

Once they were in college, they'd go to some bar in another town, get hammered and the single guys would try to pick up chicks. He said try 'cause some douche would always mention why they were there. And that shit scares girls off.

After college it really turned into more of a family event. The first year out of college Finn and Quinn had secured the ol' ball and she was already pregnant by Father's Day (seriously, you think the word pregnant around that girl and she's knocked up). Matt had a serious girlfriend. Artie and Tina were in an off-again phase, but they'd be on-again by the next year. Mike was single, but it didn't really phase him. And him? He'd been dating Rachel since the summer before college.

She'd always been involved though. Every year she'd send him a cute (shut up!) little text. Like,_ Happy Father's Day! You would have made an awesome dad_ or _Happy Father's Day! You're the hottest dad I've ever seen_ or the year they got engaged: _Happy Father's Day! Our kids will know how much you love them. _Totally not badass, but a real boost to the ego anyway. How do you not end up with a girl like that? (Plus, she's awesome in the sack.)

This year Beth is 13. Including her (the original) they have almost a dozen kids between them. Finn managed to knock Quinn up three more times, for a grand total of five kids (don't drink the water). Matt and Artie each have two kids. Mike has one. And him? He and Rachel don't have any, and it ain't for lack of trying (fuck, he's been tryin').

He's been wrestling with Quinn and Finn's middle kid (unfortunately named Dewey) and listening to Quinn bitch ("He's not a toy, Puck!" Really? He had no idea), when he gets his text from Rachel.

_Happy Father's Day! Only nine more months to go ;)_

He catches her eye from across the yard and knows she's not joking. All his hard work (pun totally intended) has paid off. He's got her pinned to the fence in seconds, kissing the life out of her.

"There are children here, Puck!"

Rachel giggles against his mouth. "How does she think they got here?"


	5. Happy Mother's Day

When they start talking about getting married, Rachel insists that they talk about everything. Not like she doesn't make him talk about everything anyway, so he goes with it.

Puck makes it pretty clear that he wants kids. It doesn't have to be right away, he knows she wants to focus on her career for now. Which is fine by him, 'cause the more she works the more money they have to support the rugrats. He's not a total douche (he sorta is, but not about this) that expects his girl to do all the hard work, but she's gonna make more money as a Broadway star than he is as a music teacher.

But he definitely wants kids. More kids than Rachel's willing to push out of her body.

She wants one. Which Puck thinks is stupid. He knows she's an only child and she doesn't have any problems with that, but he thinks maybe she wouldn't have been so lonely if she'd had a brother or sister. God knows he was never lonely.

Puck wants four. And he's got, like, logical reasons and shit.

See, one kid is all by themselves and they get lonely. There's no one else to take the pressure off when your parents get pissed at you or when you feel like your parents are smothering you. Knowing him and Rachel, it's bound to happen.

Two kids is okay, but you've only got each other. And it's either you two against the world or you hate each other's fuckin' guts. There's no middle ground.

Three kids is the worst idea. See, 'cause then you've always got two kids that are getting along and one kid is by themselves being ganged up on by the other two. So three kids is a bad idea.

Four kids is great. With four kids you can mix and match. You'll have two sets that are getting along and even if they're not getting along with each other, someone's got your back. You want the teams to be even.

Rachel's not really into the idea of pushing four kids outta her yoo-hoo. So they compromise. They'll have two.

* * *

><p>When they get pregnant, they're both excited. And even though he's kinda done this before, it's still all new because it's Rachel and it's their baby. A baby that he's gonna know.<p>

And Rachel's super sensitive about that. The fact that he's done this before. So he basically keeps his mouth shut about that and never mentions Quinn.

It's just that Quinn managed to hide her pregnancy for months. Even at the end she wasn't that big. And Rachel? She's huge. Like massive. And no, he hasn't told her that. He's not stupid. He just doesn't understand how someone so tiny can get so big so fast. The kid is probably gonna be like that giant Chinese baby. And then they're definitely not gonna have any more kids, 'cause Rachel'll fuckin' kill him and chop his balls off.

Things start to make sense when they go for the first ultrasound.

Three babies. She's got three babies inside her.

* * *

><p>For a week she won't talk to him. Like he did it on purpose. Hello, if he'd done it on purpose, she'd have four babies growing in her.<p>

Telling her that does not win him any points. It wins him a one way trip to the dog house and an all expenses paid stay on the couch.

He lets her have her week. She gets to be shocked. Hell, he's shocked and he's not even the one that's growing three people and carting them around.

But once the week is over, it's time to talk about things. They were all excited for a kid, and now they've got three coming and they've gotta be as ready as they can be.

"Look, I know you're pissed at me for letting the boys run wild in your uterus, but you've gotta talk to me, babe."

"I'm not angry, Noah." He raises his eyebrow at her. "Okay, I'm a little angry. We were only supposed to have two kids. Spaced three years apart, giving my body ample time to recover from giving birth to the first baby and ensuring that said first baby was toilet trained. Noah, this is a disaster. We don't have room for three babies in this apartment. Besides, there are only two of us. How are we possibly going to take care of three babies? What happens when they all start crying at the same time?"

"Shit, the minute I tell my mom we're pregnant, she's gonna throw us a goddamn party."

"That's another thing. How are we going to tell people?"

"Uh…the same way we would have told them we were having one baby."

"Alright. What, exactly, are you planning to say to your mother?"

"I'm about to give you three Jewish grandbabies in one go. Happy Mother's Day, Ma." It makes Rachel laugh for the first time in a week, so he thinks it's gold.

"You can't say that!" Rachel says as she laughs.

"Why not? It doesn't have to be complicated. I know you probably had, like, a twenty slide powerpoint presentation ready to go but sometimes simple works."

"It was only ten." His girl is totally crazy. Good thing he loves her like crazy. "And stop distracting me from my original point – how are we possibly going to manage triplets?"

"Look, the minute my mom finds out you're growing her grandbabies, she's gonna wanna take up permanent residence in our apartment. We'll find a bigger apartment. And we'll manage. When they all start crying, you'll take one 'cause you're all little, and I'll take the other two. Have you seen my guns?"

Rachel eyes his arms for a minute and has to admit that the image of him holding two of their babies is pretty sexy.

"Babe, as long as we love them, we'll be fine." When Rachel doesn't say anything, a red flag goes up in his mind. Maybe that's why she's so angry. Maybe she only wanted one kid because she thinks she can only love one kid. "You do love them, right?"

Rachel's head whips up and her eyes are wet. "Of course I love them." He crosses the room and wraps his arms around her. He hates it when she cries.

"I didn't think I could. It's why I only wanted one child, but you had so much love to give that I agreed to two because I figured that even if I could only love one, you would love them both. But the second, the very second, that I saw these babies on that screen, I fell so in love with them. I didn't know I could love this much."

"You love better than anyone I know, babe." He whispers into her hair.

* * *

><p>Rachel gives birth to three beautiful baby girls, who are eventually followed by three handsome baby boys.<p>

Gotta keep the teams even.


	6. He May Not Be The Brightest Crayon

She's eight months pregnant. She is hot and tired and her feet, which are three times their normal size, hurt. She is cranky and hormonal. And when she said she was hungry and wanted to get something to eat, she did not mean that she wanted her husband to take her to the food court at the mall.

Noah has been generally unhelpful and a gigantic pain in her rear end all day.

Rachel's plan for the day was simple. Drop the kids off at his mom's and finish their holiday shopping. It may seem a little early, considering that Halloween was only last week, but the baby will be arriving soon and she wants to be finished her shopping well before that happens.

But what seemed like a simple plan has rapidly become a disaster.

Rachel did not think that it was too much to ask that Noah help her get the kids ready to go to his mom's. But, apparently, what usually takes her a half hour takes her husband an hour and forty-five minutes. An hour and forty-five minutes to dress two little boys, comb their hair and brush their teeth!

Her usually pristine kitchen had Cheerios, bananas and milk all over the table and counter. In the time it took her to clean the mess, she could've fed her boys and had them over to their grandmother's.

By the time she and Noah actually made it to the mall, she was at the end of what is, admittedly, a very short tether.

And while she knows he hates the mall, the least he could do is be patient and helpful while she shops for his mother and sister as well as his children. But every question she has asked him has been met with either grunts or ridiculous answers.

The straw that breaks the camel's back comes when they are eating in the food court. She is attempting to lock him in on their son's main gift.

"I really think that the second Lego set that we looked at was the best option. He spends…"

"I did it!" He says excitedly as he interrupts her.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I got this straw to fit into this straw." Noah holds two straws up in front of her, grinning like a little boy.

"Oh, my god." She cries as she heaves herself out of her seat. "You haven't been listening to me at all."

Rachel gathers up her coat and purse and leaves him with all of the bags they've collected throughout the day.

"Where are we going?" He asks as he scrambles to get all of the bags together and follow her.

"I am going to finish the holiday shopping. You can do whatever you want."

Two hours later Rachel has calmed down enough that she can contemplate calling Noah for a ride home and not think about strangling him with the handles of one of her shopping bags.

He answers his phone on the first ring and agrees to meet her at the front entrance of the mall with the car. He may be in her bad books, but at least he isn't making her hike across the parking lot in the dark.

* * *

><p>Later that night, as Rachel is organizing everything she bought, she comes across a bag from a store that she knows she didn't go into today.<p>

"Noah?" She calls out. He's in the kitchen, cleaning up from dinner.

"Yeah?" His head pops around the divider between the kitchen and the dining room, where she's currently sitting.

"Is this yours?" Rachel asks him as he comes into the room and leans his shoulder against the wall.

"Yeah, I just picked up a couple things for the baby this afternoon." He shrugs like it's no big deal. "You can look."

She opens the bag and pulls out two items: a blanket and shirt. The blanket is pink and made of the softest material Rachel has ever felt. The name that they've picked out for their baby girl is stitched into the corner of the blanket. She spreads the blanket across her lap so she can inspect the shirt. It's tiny, but not for a newborn, something she can grow into. The shirt is a little, dark pink football jersey with "Puckerman" written on the back. The boys have matching little, blue jerseys.

"Noah." She whispers through her tears.

This is why she loves him. He drives her crazy. All day she's been furious with him and then he does something so sweet that she forgets why she was mad in the first place.

"It's no big deal so quit the waterworks. Let's get this stuff cleaned up, and then I'll give you a foot massage while we watch the game. I recorded it earlier." She groans at the thought of sitting through an entire game before starting to clear up.

He may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but he's still her favourite colour, and she'd rather have a whole box of him than a brand new box of 48 crayons.


	7. I Carry Your Heart

They get married young. They haven't even finished college, but they're in love and they want to spend the rest of their lives together.

Everyone tells them they're crazy and tries to talk them out of it. When that fails, everyone assumes that they're getting married because Rachel's pregnant. She's not.

Or at least she wasn't when they got married.

They get married in June, go on their honeymoon in July, find out she's pregnant in August.

No believes that they got pregnant on their honeymoon. They have to take his mom with them to the doctor before she believes it.

They knew that it was going to be hard, being married in college. The baby thing throws them for a loop. But the minute he knows that this baby is coming, he loves it.

Some days he looks at Rachel, cooking dinner or studying, and he realizes that his whole world is in her.

It reminds him of that old poem: "I carry your heart. I carry it in my heart."

Rachel is literally carrying a heart that they created, a heart that's supported by her heart. But she's also carrying the heart that he didn't think he had, not until he really knew her.

And he knows that while she's carrying his hearts, he's carrying hers. And when that baby is born, he'll be holding Rachel's heart in his hands the way she's carrying his in her body.

So people can think he's insane for starting a family at 20, but they obviously don't have a heart to carry.


	8. I Don't Know

Puck does not want to end up like his Uncle Larry. He does not want to be a weirdo bachelor at 40.

So when him mom signs him up for this Jewish matchmaking service, he figures it can't hurt to go on a few dates. It's not like the girls he's meeting are exactly marriage material. (The fact that he's picking them up in bars probably doesn't say good things about him.)

His first few dates are awful. These girls don't have a hope or a prayer of getting married without some serious therapy and behavior modification.

His fourth date, however, is totally hot and doesn't seem like she has some sort of personality defect. What she is, apparently, is a workaholic.

"I'm honestly trying to be better, but I cannot handle incompetence, and the people I work with…well, you get the picture." She tells him.

Her name is Rachel Berry. She's 28, works for a major record label and is exactly the kind of girl he's looking for.

Puck's already decided he's not going to rush this. He's going to take his time and get to know her.

So over their next several dates he places his hand on the small of her back to guide her, kisses her cheek in greeting and to end the evening, and even goes so far as to hold her hand, but he doesn't go any further than that.

But by date six, Puck is nuts about Rachel. She's sweet and funny, independent but isn't closed off. He honestly didn't think when he agreed to do this for his mom that he'd actually find a woman he wanted to marry. And maybe it's a little early for that, but he can kinda already picture their life. He's turned into a woman.

On date nine she seems a little distant and he wonders if she met someone else. By date 11, he thinks maybe he's done something to piss her off and spends the next two days going over every date and trying to pick out what he'd done. He can't figure out what he's done, so he figures he better just ask her.

"Look, have I done something to piss you off?" He asks.

"I'm not pissed off. I just feel like I might be wasting my time." She tells him as she stirs her coffee."

"Oh." To be honest, Puck is sorta shocked. He thought they had connected.

"It's a shame, really, because you are exactly the kind of man I'm looking for, and if you were at all attracted to me, I think that this could really be something."

"What?" He asks dumbfounded. He thinks he's been pretty clear about how he feels about her. You don't go on 12 dates with a woman that you're not interested in. "I am attracted to you. Believe me."

"You can't be that attracted to me if you're not doing anything about it."

"I was trying to take it slow." Rachel raises an eyebrow at him.

"You don't really seem like the type."

"I know. It's just…I've been all about the…physical. But a relationship should be about more than just the physical stuff. And for the first time in…like…ever, I want a relationship. So I'm trying to take it slow."

"That's very sweet, Noah. But if we go any slower, we'll be going backwards. So if you wanted to move a little faster," Rachel's foot slides up his calf, "I don't think that would jeopardize our relationship."

"I'll get the bill."


	9. Hate It When You Act Like I Don't Exist

Rachel always thought that she would go to New York by herself. Then Kurt announced that he and Blaine were going to New York as well, so her picture of her life changed slightly. That picture changed again when a small group of the New Directions all decided to go to New York. In the long run, it really was so much better than she could ever have imagined.

Instead of living in a college dorm with an irritating roommate who played dance music at all hours and brought her boyfriend around all the time, she ended up sharing an apartment with Mercedes and Santana. By a stroke of luck (that her daddies might have orchestrated), Kurt and Blaine end up in the apartment across the hall and Noah and Sam, in an apartment two floors below.

It's sort of like Friends.

Her life is amazing. She has fantastic friends. They spend most of their time together, wandering in and out of each other's apartments, firmly entrenched in everyone else's lives. They have other friends but this is their core group.

So when she and Noah start dating at the end of sophomore year, it seems perfect. Three couples that love to spend time together. She feels very much like an adult.

Everything stays perfect for four years. They all have jobs that they love (or will love when they make it to the top). Kurt is working in the wardrobe department of an insanely addictive new prime time teen drama, a la One Tree Hill. Sam is working in the mail room of a publishing company, trying to work his way up. Mercedes is working at a little salon/spa in Manhattan. Blaine is an intern at a daytime talk show. Noah is working at a recording studio, and she is in a very small, but very good off-off-Broadway production.

And then Sam proposes to Mercedes, and Rachel's life goes to hell.

She and Mercedes love their apartment. It's fabulous. It's the right colour, and the furniture was all handpicked (and sometimes lovingly restored) by them. Neither one really wants to move. It seems like a simple fix. One of them will move downstairs and whichever significant other will move upstairs.

In the end, Sam and Mercedes decide that they'll live in Sam and Noah's apartment. That way they can decorate the apartment as a couple. It will be a new start.

It quickly becomes apparent that Noah really doesn't want to move. What Rachel can't figure out is if he just doesn't want to leave his apartment or if he doesn't want to move in with her? Trying to figure it out leads to arguments, which leads to full out fights, never about the real issue and then they're broken up.

So now, she either has to move out of her apartment so Sam can move in, or she has to dig her heels in and refuse to move leaving Noah homeless. Sam and Mercedes both say that they're perfectly fine with a roommate, but she can't do that to them.

So she ends up moving into Kurt and Blaine's spare room while she looks for a new apartment. If she waits a year, a tenant on the first floor is moving back to Stockholm when his internship ends, but she's still keeping an eye out.

Everything is awful.

When she's been at Kurt and Blaine's for two months, her show closes. She is now single, homeless and jobless. Mercedes manages to get her a job working at the front desk of the salon. She's good at it but she hates it. The only saving grace is that the owners are very good about letting her take time for auditions.

She could deal with being homeless and jobless if she had Noah. Even before they were dating, he was her go-to person. Kurt and Mercedes were her best friends, and Sam and Blaine were great guys, but when she'd really had a bad day or she needed a dose of realism, Noah was the person she went to.

And now that they're broken up, the one person that she most wants to talk to is the reason she needs to talk to him in the first place.

Rachel was also very clear with her friends about the fact that nobody was going to be excluded and no sides would be taken. She and Noah are adults and they can be in the same room. No one is losing out because their relationship didn't work out. Easier said than done.

Truthfully, the only way she's coping with everything is to pretend that she doesn't know him. She tries not to think about him and basically ignores him when they all get together.

But today has been a truly crappy day. When she finally leaves the salon, she stops at the Chinese place on the corner for a ridiculous amount of food. She bought a bottle of wine at lunch when she knew that her day wasn't going to get any better, and she plans on going home, getting into her pajamas, and then getting into bed and gorging herself while she watches a sad movie.

So to say she's a little disappointed when she gets home and the whole gang is there is an understatement. Rachel is in no mood to deal with Noah tonight.

Two hours into the evening, she can't take anymore talk about how fantastic everyone's lives are. She notices that drinks are low, so she heads into the kitchen to get more wine. She has to fight back tears when Puck follows her.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine." She tells him using the abrupt tone she's adopted for dealing with him but continues moving around the kitchen as though he's not there.

"Fuck. I hate it when you act like I don't exist. Like what we had never happened."

"I hate that you broke up with me because you're afraid of commitment, but we all have our crosses to bear."

"I'm not afraid of commitment!" He shouts.

"You broke up with me!" Rachel shouts back, throwing her hands in the air as she finally turns to look at him.

"You're not the kind of girl you move in with, Rachel." The tears are leaking from her eyes as soon as the words leave his mouth.

"Right. Well, I'm sorry you wasted so much time on me." She turns back to the counter.

"Shit, Rach. That's not what I meant. I mean, I wanted to get married."

"Noah, I get it. You didn't see a future with me. Can we please…just," she draws in a shaky breath, "can you please just leave me alone? I need a minute."

"No. You don't get it. You used to be so good at knowing what I was saying when all the words came out in a fucked up jumble. D'you think you could look at me for a minute?"

Rachel slowly turns around to look at him. She wipes her eyes and then crosses her arms over her chest.

"I was saving for a ring when Sam popped the question, but I didn't have enough. And you're not the kind of girl you move in with. I want to get married. To you. I don't want anyone thinking that I don't think you're good enough to marry. That I'm the kind of guy that'll live with a girl but won't marry her."

"So you broke up with me?" She questions slowly.

"I don't even know how that happened." Puck says, obviously frustrated. "One day you're asking about heavy lifting and the next thing I know we're broken up."

"So, you want to marry me?"

"Yeah." He says, moving towards her.

"Because I'm the kind of girl you marry."

"Yeah." He backs her against the kitchen counter.

"Not the kind of girl you live with."

"Rachel." His hands are on the counter at her sides, his body pressed against hers.

"Yes?" She says, lifting her eyes from his lips to his eyes.

"I know I'm an idiot, but I'm an idiot who loves you."

"I…"

"Marry me."

"Okay."

"Are you growing the grapes in here?" Kurt says as he enters the kitchen. He stops dead when he sees Puck and Rachel. "Oh, Prada. They're finally back together, ladies and gentlemen. Who won the pool?"


	10. I Hope You Never Regret Me

Puck's slept with a lot of women. Cougars, Cheerios, anyone hot enough to be invited to a kegger. It's a long list and with the exception of a few (Quinn, Santana, a couple others), he didn't really give a flying fuck about any of them. But the list is just as long of girls that regret sleeping with him, that wish they could take it back.

So when he and Rachel start something right before they go away to college (her in New York, him in Florida) it's pretty easy to put off sleeping with her. She's not the kind of girl that jumps into bed with a guy after a week anyway.

'Cause here's the thing. He really likes Rachel. He thinks there could actually be a future there. And not like he thought there could be a future with Quinn, where he was going after someone way out of his league (he'll admit it) and then trying fucking desperately to build on something that wasn't there to begin with. And Rachel's totally out of his league, too, but she doesn't think she is. She's smart and funny and talented and a million and one other things, but she wants him.

They've been like best friends since she was still dating Finn, and he figures that building their relationship on their friendship is a kickass idea. She's not around to tempt him physically, but they talk all the time. Phone, texting, email, Facebook, Twitter, you name it, they do it. And he just really gets to know his right hand and he spends a lot of time explaining to his shower drain why he's not calling.

Puck read somewhere that good girls don't sleep with someone in the first three months. So he counts actual time together and figures that if he waits to make a move until the end of June, he should be golden.

He doesn't count on Rachel fucking throwing herself at him. He should've. His guns are awesome and forget that Jersey Shore loser. Puck's abs are a situation.

They see each other at Thanksgiving (week one) and over the winter break (weeks two, three and four), but he never lets it go too far.

But then she starts suggesting they go on vacation together over spring break (week five). And she doesn't mean in separate hotel rooms. So he comes up with some big project that he's gotta work on over the break (cancel week five) and she's disappointed but she understands.

Things really start to get difficult when they come home for the summer. 'Cause Rachel? On top of being smokin' hot? Kinda handsy. And he's running out of ways to say no.

Really, she's givin' him the green light. But he doesn't have a daughter he doesn't know because someone gave him a red light. He doesn't play that way.

They're three weeks into the summer when things come to a head.

Things are gettin' pretty heated, but he's keeping his hands in the safe zones. You know, face, hair, neck, arms, waist. And he's keeping things in the upright and locked position.

But then she's trying to move things to a horizontal position and she keeps trying to move his hand to her boob. And it's getting harder and harder not to just leave it there.

After the third time that she moves his hand higher and tries to lean back, and he moves his hand back down to her waist and just pulls her closer to him, she starts making this noise. And he realizes she's crying.

"Why're you crying?" He asks gruffly, tucking loose hair behind her ear.

"Because I don't understand what I'm doing wrong!" She says, moving from the couch to stand in front of the fire place with her arms crossed over her chest. Which makes her rack look awesome. She's seriously trying to kill him.

"Wrong?" He's totally confused.

"I'm obviously doing something wrong, because when we were in high school you were all excited for bra removal time and now I think I could offer my breasts as a platter for hamburgers and you'd only be interested in the burgers." His eyes glaze over at the idea of eating a burger off of Rachel's bare boobs.

"Trust me, I'd be interested in more than the burger." He tells her.

"Well, then what is it? I'm obviously failing to arouse you." She's this weird combination of pissed off and upset that is oddly hot and not doing anything to help below the belt.

"Totally not a problem, Rach." He says as he ticks his eyes toward his crotch. Little Puck is definitely making his presence known.

"Then why won't you just fuck me already?" She shouts, exasperated. God, he's glad her dads aren't home.

"'Cause it hasn't been three months!" He shouts back. Damn! He wasn't supposed to tell her.

"What are you talking about?" She looks totally shocked by his outburst. "We've been dating since August, which if I'm correct, and I am, is 10 months."

"Yeah 10 months of long distance, we've only been physically together for like two and a half months." She looks at him like he should get to the point. "Look, most of the girls I've slept with regret it. And it fucking sucks. Being regretted. And I never want you to regret me." Puck tells her honestly.

Rachel's on him so fast he doesn't even remember her moving. It takes him a minute to realize he's got 95 lbs. of brunette attacking his lips, but once he does, he returns her kiss with enthusiasm.

When Rachel finally pulls away from him, she holds his face while she whispers, "You're kind of sweet, you know that, right? But I will never, ever regret you."

"Yeah?"

"Never."

She leans back in to kiss him and Puck lets her take control. She doesn't waste any time.

Rachel's got her shirt off, his lips are on her neck and his fingers are seconds away from popping the clasp on her bra.

"Why three months?" The way she says it is all breathy and totally hot. This is not a discussion that needs to happen right now.

He drags his lips up her neck and along her jaw as he releases the clasp on her bra and slides his hand over her breast before saying into her ear, "I read good girls wait that long."

She slides her foot up the back of his calf and hooks her leg around his thigh as she says, "Let me show you how bad I can be."

God, he's not gonna regret this.


	11. I Love You!

As she turns the corner into the hallway outside the choir room, Santana can hear that Rachel is mid-rant. And if she knows anything about Rachel, and she does, she knows her best friend is probably yelling at Puck.

Puck and Rachel have been going out since the summer before senior year, thanks to her awesome matchmaking skills. She may have slept with Finn, but that guy is a total moron who definitely doesn't deserve Rachel.

Yeah, it's totally screwy that she and Rachel are best friends now, considering that she couldn't stand Rachel until well into junior year and that Rachel was fit to be tied when she found out that Finn slept with her. But they got pretty close after her idiot boyfriend (seriously, she has no respect for that guy) made her go to a party even though Rachel hadn't been feeling well all day. She'd totally sung her guts out at Regionals (they won, suck it!) even though she'd felt (and looked) like crap. Then he'd pulled a total Houdini on her once they got to the party. When Rachel had started vomiting like Linda Blair, she and Puck had to race her to the hospital. Turns out appendicitis bonds you for life.

And mostly she's glad that she got Puck and Rachel together, but about once a month they have a total blowout before they go back to be sickeningly in tune. And it's always about stupid stuff like Puck falling asleep during the Tonys or Rachel talking during Mario Kart.

And it's been about a month since their last big fight, so this is right on schedule. It's like a period.

When she enters the choir room, she's not surprised to find everyone already there, watching the entertainment. Someone's even brought popcorn.

"What'd he do this time?" She asks as she grabs a handful of popcorn from the bowl in Kurt's lap.

"From what we can tell, Puck told Little Miss Likes to Fight that he'd, if you'll pardon the vernacular, 'tap' the new girl in his algebra class." No wonder her girl was loco, that boy was a total idiot. She tunes into Rachel's rant, trying to follow her train of thought.

"…and furthermore, I do not think that you have any sort of respect for me or for any female in general if you believe language…" Puck looks like he's ready to blow at any minute, and when he does it's so entertaining. "…you make me feel as though I'm just one in a long line of women that you choose to grace with your presence and…"

Puck's jaw is clenched so tight, it's making the vein in his neck throb. He's gonna blow in 5, 4, 3, 2…

"I love you!" Woah, she totally wasn't expecting that. The whole room just got totally silent.

"Don't shout at me!" Leave it to Rachel to totally miss the point.

"How else am I supposed to tell you? You never let me fucking talk!" Boy's got a point.

"Fine. You want to talk? Talk!"

"I don't actually wanna tap her; I just think she's hot. I don't get all fucking bent outta shape when you think another dude's hot."

"When have I ever said that I thought a 'dude' was hot?"

"Every fucking Thursday night when we watch that damn vampire show with the gay vampires with feelings!" Ha, she knew Puck watched The Vampire Diaries. She's totally using that against him.

"Don't use the brilliance of Craig Ferguson to try to get out of this. And there is a huge difference between thinking that Damon Salvatore is attractive and professing to being attracted to Georgia Tedder." Okay, she's starting to get bored. Get back to the fact that he loves you, chica!

"How is it any different? It's not like you're not gonna meet all these dudes when you're all famous and shit."

"You think I'm going to be famous?" Sure, she locks on to that pretty damn fast. She notices that they're slowly inching closer to each other.

"Course you are. And then all those dudes you think are hot are gonna be after you."

"And that worries you?" Rachel's not fighting anymore.

"What the fuck do you think? Did you not hear me? I love you!" Finally, something's gotten through Rachel's ridiculously thick skin.

"You really love me?"

"I don't lie to you." That's totally true. It's like Rachel's his conscience, 'cause he sure as hell didn't have one before.

"I thought you were just trying to shut me up." They're so close now that Puck is easily able to pull Rachel towards him by her hips.

"I've got way better ways to shut you up, babe." Okay, she didn't need the demonstration. She sees enough of that already.

"I love you, too, Noah."

"Course you do, Rach. I'm fuckin' awesome." Whatever.

You know who's fuckin' awesome? She is. She put that lovefest together.


	12. I Really Want To Talk To You

Puck messages Rachel as soon as he finds out that he's been accepted to culinary school in New York. He stayed in Lima and worked for a year while he upgraded some of his courses. There were a lot of good culinary schools in the country, but he had his heart set on New York. Rachel had talked it up during high school and somehow it had become his dream too. He would have gone to one of the other schools he was accepted to, but once he got the acceptance from New York, he knew that was where he was going.

* * *

><p>Rachel gets a message from Puck saying that he got into culinary school in New York, which she always knew he could do, and that they "should hang or shit". She will assume that "shit" in this instance means "whatever". He's so vulgar.<p>

She messages him back and says that would be wonderful and that anytime he wants to get together, she'll make room in her schedule. But she doesn't hold her breath because people don't usually follow through.

So Rachel is pleasantly surprised when he actually calls her. He tells her there's a restaurant he wants to try and he thought they could go together.

It ends up becoming their thing. They take turns calling each other and suggesting a restaurant or a take-out menu. They'll generally watch a movie (or every season of One Tree Hill) after and end up talking far into the night.

Rachel loves the fact that they take turns. Puck initiated, she reciprocated, and that could have been the end of it. Puck keeps calling though, and she keeps calling back. She assumes that means that they're actual friends, and she's not just someone he felt obligated to call and hang out with once.

* * *

><p>Puck offers Rachel a ride home for the holidays. They argue over everything the entire trip. He's never had more fun with a chick he's not banging.<p>

And he's kinda starting to think it's a crime that he's not banging her. She's insanely fucking hot, tightly wound, crazy, loud…and she's Rachel. So there's that.

They spend pretty much the entire break together. All their friends think they're together, and completely putting aside the fact that he hasn't gotten laid in a while and he thinks Rachel'd be a good way to end the dry spell, he doesn't think it's a terrible idea.

He's always had a bit of thing for her and not just a cock thing. Like, he fuckin' hates it when she's sad and when people do shitty things to her it makes him want to rip them in half. Some weeks hanging out with her is the only thing that keeps him fucking sane. And he kinda likes being the guy that she shares things with.

Maybe once they get settled back into the city, he'll make a move.

* * *

><p>It's Rachel's turn to organize after they get back to New York. She's a little busy with classes so she doesn't call Puck for a week. When she does, he sounds like he's in the middle of a subway station. It's loud on his end and he seems distracted, but he agrees to meet her on the weekend.<p>

When Saturday rolls around, Rachel gets a text saying that he's sorry, but he can't meet her. He'll call her later.

A week later he still hasn't called her. So she sends him a couple texts that never get replies.

At first she just tells herself that the world doesn't revolve around her, and he's probably just busy. But when one week turns into two and then three, she realizes that he just doesn't want to spend time with her anymore.

She thinks about contacting him one more time, but she doesn't want to be that irritating girl that just can't take a hint.

She will hold on to her dignity at all costs. Too many other people have taken it from her in the past.

* * *

><p>Puck has had the shittiest week ever. His instructor is a heartless bastard who belittles people every chance he gets. The girls in his program are cutthroat bitches that would throw him in a meat grinder if they got the chance. His neighbour is an asshole that plays Cher into the middle of the night. Plus he's been so busy that he hasn't seen Rachel in weeks.<p>

When he realized that he hadn't seen her in six weeks, he'd sent her a text telling her he was sorry for being a shitty friend and that he finally, finally has the weekend free and he's all hers. All he'd gotten back was a brief (from Rachel!) text saying not to worry and that she was busy this weekend.

That was when he realized that he'd hurt her.

* * *

><p>When she told Puck she was busy, she didn't really lie. She does have a theory exam next week, but she knows the material inside out. She's going to go over the material once so she's not a liar. Then she's going to get into her brand new Lulu Lemon gear, order dinner from the Indian place on the corner, and settle in for a Charmed marathon.<p>

She's just sat down and started the first episode when someone buzzes to be let into the building.

* * *

><p>Puck decides he's going to make it up to Rachel. He decides he's going to make Rachel's favourite dessert and then he'll sit on her steps until she gets home from wherever. And he'll apologize for being a fucking dickhead and not appreciating his friends.<p>

Sunita from the Indian place on the corner is just being buzzed in when he arrives at Rachel's apartment. It means he can sit outside her apartment until she gets home instead of freezing his balls off on her front steps.

"Ah, Noah. I will leave this with you. Tell Rachel that my father included extra nan bread for her."

"Uh, thanks." He's a little confused but takes the bag and heads inside as Sunita makes her way back to her family's restaurant.

* * *

><p>Rachel is expecting to see Aadi or Sunita when she opens the door. Instead, she sees Puck with her Indian food in one hand and a bowl of her favourite trifle in the other.<p>

"What are you doing here, Noah?"

"Thought you had plans?"

"I'm studying." She says, crossing her arms. He looks past her at the TV, where Piper is frozen on the screen.

"Right." He drawls.

"I'm allowed to take a break." When he just continues looking at her, she continues. "Is there a reason that you're here?"

"I came to bring you dessert and apologize for being…well, now that I know you're just avoiding me 'cause you're mad at me, I'm coming in to hang out." He pushes past her into the kitchen, putting dessert into the fridge, getting out dishes and cutlery, and opening food.

"I'm not mad at you. I'm just making it easier for you. And you can't just come in here and eat all my food."

"Relax, Rach. If you're still hungry, I'll make you something. I won't let you starve. And whattaya mean, you're making it easier for me?"

"For you to stop spending time with me." Her voice is all sad, so he looks up at her. Rachel looks so small standing there, avoiding his eye, wringing her hands.

"Why the fuck would I want to stop spending time with you?" He passes her a plate of food and goes to sit in the living room.

"You're the one who's been ignoring me for weeks."

"I got a little busy, and I'm sorry. But phones work both ways."

"I sent you texts and you never got back to me. I always feel like I'm annoying you."

"Shut up. You're my girl. You have, like, a non-annoyance pass. Now are we gonna watch or are we gonna be awkward all night?"

Rachel feels like her face might break in two as she goes to sit next to him.

"I've never been anyone's girl before."

* * *

><p>Fuck. Could she be any cuter? He basically has to date her now.<p>

"Yeah, well, you're mine. And you can't be awkward on our first date. So get it outta your system."

She leans over, grabs his face and kisses him long and slow before turning back to the TV and her food.

He stares at the TV in a daze. Tonight won't be awkward at all.


	13. Couture Wedding Dresses

Five members of the glee club end up in New York after graduation. Puck and Santana are at NYU, Sam and Rachel are at Columbia, and Kurt is at the Fashion Institute. The only reason that Puck and Rachel even start dating is because they're thrown together when Sam and Santana decide to give their relationship another try.

Santana's his best friend, but she's a bitch. She'll arrange these stupid nights out that always end with Sam and Santana ditching to go fuck, and leaving him with Rachel and Kurt. Puck only goes to these things because he never gets to see Santana since she started dating Sam, but he could be using these nights to get laid.

After the fourth time it happens, he decides he's getting laid before the night is over. When it's time to go home, his options end up being Kurt or Rachel. And while he's totally cool with the gay thing, it's not something he actually wants to try. So Rachel it is.

It's easier than he thinks to get her into bed. He basically talks dirty to her the whole way to her place, and just when he thinks he might've crossed a line, she tells him to get inside and drop his pants.

They spend the rest of the weekend in bed having sex and bitching about their crap ass best friends.

It's not long before they're the ones ditching out on nights out.

* * *

><p>Puck doesn't mean to fall in love with Rachel. In fact, once he realizes it's happening, he tries to distance himself. But it's kinda hard when your best friends are engaged.<p>

It lasts two weeks. He misses her like crazy, and he realizes that he's not just falling for her, he's already fallen for her.

Plus, Santana sits him down and tells him to get his head out of his ass. Basically, she's sick of Rachel calling Sam at all hours to cry over his sorry ass. It's totally ruining her sex life.

Less than a year later, he's standing in a jewelry store picking out an engagement ring.

* * *

><p>The first thing that comes out of her mouth after she says yes (and after he spends the whole night making her say yes) is that she wants to wait to tell everyone.<p>

Which makes him feel like fucking crap, to be honest. Aren't chicks supposed to be all over telling everyone and showing off the rock? Santana called while she was riding Sam to tell them she was getting hitched.

So he kind of doesn't understand why Rachel wants to wait, but he goes along with it.

They end up waiting a month before they tell their families. They haven't even been off the phone with his sister for five minutes before Kurt is calling. He has appointments set up to look at venues, dresses, and flowers.

And now he gets why she wanted to wait.

* * *

><p>Kurt shows up bright and early the next morning to drag them out to look at venues.<p>

Two days later he's dragging a bewildered Rachel out the door to try on dresses, while he mumbles about fabrics and the number of stores on the east coast.

They can barely go five minutes without a phone call or a text from Kurt.

Every time someone mentions the word "wedding", Rachel gets this frazzled look in her eyes.

He'd take the damn ring back if he didn't think that would upset Rachel even more.

* * *

><p>Puck comes home a month later to find Rachel sitting on the floor in the middle of their living room surrounded by wedding magazines and samples, crying.<p>

"What the hell?" he asks. The minute she sees him, she wipes her eyes and tries to put on a smile.

"I think I've picked our invitations and our colours. We just need to pick a date and then Kurt can get the ball rolling."

"Cut the crap, Rach. You're crying." He wades his way through the junk and pulls Rachel up off the floor and onto the couch.

"I just...There's so much that goes into a wedding. I had no idea, and the things I did know about are so complicated. Kurt took me to look at dresses again today, and they're all so, so...awful. None of them look like something I would wear. One of them..." Rachel suddenly bursts into some weird combination of laughing and crying. "It looked like it had been inspired by a poodle. Another one looked like it had been torn to shreds and put back together. No one I want involved is actually involved. I just...I just want to be your wife."

"Let's elope." He doesn't even think before he says it, but the minute the words have left his mouth, he knows it's the best thing for everyone. Rachel won't go crazy (crazier), Kurt won't be murdered, he won't go to prison, and he'll save a truckload of cash.

"What?" Rachel says through her tears, looking up at him with these huge eyes.

"Let's go to an island somewhere. You, me, your dads, my mom and Sarah, Sam and Santana. That's it. We'll get married on the beach. Practice for all those babies my mom wants, and Kurt can throw a party when we get back." He thinks he's going to have to fight her on it, but she surprises him.

"Yes." She sighs, like a huge weight has been lifted from her shoulders. "Yes. Let's elope."

He tells her he'll take care of everything. The only thing he wants her to worry about is finding her dress and getting on the plane.

* * *

><p>He convinces their families that they just need a break from the cold, and that he found a deal at a resort in Curacao. Thanksgiving is the perfect time to go. Sarah will only miss a couple days of school, and their parents had already taken some extra time off because he and Rachel were supposed to be heading home. They accept it pretty easily when he tells them he's paying.<p>

He's been setting money aside since the day he realized that he couldn't picture his life without Rachel in it. And paying for eight people to go on vacation is a lot cheaper than paying for a whole fucking wedding planned by Kurt.

Sam and Santana aren't so easy.

Sam writes for an entertainment blog, and he tends to get them free movie passes. It used to be something that he did with Rachel, but Puck and Santana are included now. Depending on the movie, it's either freakin' awesome or sucks balls.

"Kurt broke her, didn't he?" Santana asks while they're in line for food at the movies. Sam and Rachel are in the theatre getting seats.

"He's fuckin' insane!" Puck tells her.

"I know. The day we got engaged, he called me at 4:30 in the fucking morning to find out how I felt about doves. Like I wanted something that was going to shit on me at my wedding!" She fumes.

This is why they're best friends. They're totally on the same page.

* * *

><p>"I've cleared the whole week for anything you need me for." Sam tells Rachel as they take their seats in the theatre.<p>

"What?"

"I know I'm a dude, but you did all sorts of stuff as my best person, so whatever you need, I've got your back. I'm guessing the dress is the first priority."

"How did you...?" Rachel asks.

"Please. I'm been your best friend. You don't take last minute vacations. You're also forgetting that I've been through the Kurt Hummel Wedding Torture experience. San and I didn't get more than two hours sleep at a time for a month before the wedding. I love the dude, but he's intense."

"He really, really is."

"So? Dress shopping this week?"

"Yes. Dress shopping. This is why I love you." Rachel leans over to kiss Sam's cheek, as Puck and Santana find them.

"Hey! Lips off my girl, Evans." Puck jokes.

"She's kissing me." Sam says, raising his hands.

* * *

><p>"Just keep her stress level down." Puck tells Sam over the phone the next day.<p>

"Got it."

"I'm serious, Evans. Like two stores and then like a three hour lunch with wine before you take her into another store."

"Puck, I got it." Sam tells him seriously.

Sam gives Rachel a list of four stores that he's researched. The third dress she tries on in the second store they visit is her dress. It's simple and elegant and on sale.

* * *

><p>Their parents are pretty shocked when they realize that they're in Curacao for a wedding. Mostly they're just happy that their kids are including them.<p>

Him mom makes a couple comments about the fact that they're not getting married in a synagogue, but she shuts her trap when she realizes that they're getting married by a rabbi.

They get married at sunset. He stands in the sand in his black dress pants and black button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows (because Rachel thinks its the sexiest look he sports) and watches Rachel walk down the beach in her wedding dress. He's always thought she was beautiful, but he doesn't think she'll ever look more beautiful than she does right now in her wedding dress with a flower in her hair.

Puck holds her hands as they promise to love each until death and thinks he just found a reason to live forever.


	14. I Think You're The Coolest

Rachel's not arrogant enough to believe that she knows everything about Noah, but she also knows more than he tells her.

She knows that his favourite colour is blue.

His favourite movie is Resevoir Dogs.

His favourite show is MythBusters, but he never misses an episode of Grey's Anatomy. She's sworn to secrecy about that, because he doesn't want to end up like the kid with no eyebrows.

He shaved his hair into a mohawk to piss his mom off, but it backfired and his mom loves it. He kept it to make her happy.

Noah may hate school, but he is by no means stupid. She calls him her human calculator.

He hates to read. He thinks books are too long and a waste of time. But song lyrics speak to him. He can find something beautiful in almost anything he listens to.

He likes to play the badass with questionable morals and criminal tendencies. He also likes to be the hero. He just doesn't want anyone to know that he likes to be the hero. Noah will always hide his heroic moments of sweetness behind an opportunity to be badass.

It's the reason he wanted to take care of Beth and Quinn so badly. It's the reason he removed the glist from her locker. It's the reason he was so willing to engage in physical violence when Jesse and Vocal Adrenaline egged her.

Rachel generally lets him have his moments of sweetness without saying anything, but sometimes they just can't go unacknowledged.

Like this morning when they were on their way to homeroom. Karofsky and Azimio were standing on either side of Becky Jackson's locker. She was turned to one side while Karofsky distracted her so that Azimio could take something from her lunch bag.

"Oh, hell." Noah had let go of her hand and before she could even blink, he had Azimio pinned to the lockers. "You got nothin' better to do than steal someone's lunch?"

"She's a retard. She's not gonna..." Azimio starts to say. At the word 'retard', Noah hangs his head for a second before pushing Azimio harder against the lockers.

"I don't ever wanna hear that word come outta your mouth again. Give her back whatever you took." Azimio reluctantly drops something back into Becky's lunch bag. "Good. Now you two idiots are gonna get lost and you're not gonna bother Becky again. Got it?"

Karofsky looks like he's going to put up a fight, but Noah just turns to look at him. "I'm sure Coach Sylvester will be over the damn moon to know that you steal from one of her Cheerios." Karofsky's mouth snaps shut and Noah releases Azimio enough for him to slip out and down the hall.

"This ain't over, Puck!" Karofsky spits from the end of the hall. Noah just flips him the bird before turning back to Becky. Once he makes sure that she's okay, he heads back over to Rachel.

He picks up his bag and reclaims Rachel's hand. "What kind of fucktard steals from a kid with Downs Syndrome?"

Rachel just turns to him, stretches up on her tiptoes and presses a kiss to his lips. "Noah Puckerman, I think you're the coolest, sweetest guy I've ever met."

He may be a grade 'A' douche and badass supreme, but every once in a while it pays to be a good guy.


	15. I Would Never Leave You

"Rachel?"

Puck can see his wife curled up on her side of the bed, one hand under her pillow and the other resting over her belly. She's just barely started showing, but she always has her hand there, protecting their baby.

It's their first. They found out a couple months ago, and the focus of their lives has shifted. They've been living in this happy little bubble of baby names, pinks and blues, and planning the future.

Until last weekend.

Rachel had been firm. They absolutely were not telling anyone, not even their families, that she was pregnant until she was into her second trimester. Once they knew for sure that everything was okay and they were past that hurdle, they would tell their families.

So last weekend, they had gotten on a plane and gone home to Lima.

Ever since they had started living together in college, they rotated which parents they stayed with. This time they were staying with his mom.

Over dinner on Saturday night, they told his mom and sister their news. It went exactly the way he thought it would. His mom nearly hugged them to death and then spent half an hour inspecting Rachel's belly. She took a million pictures, documenting her grandchild's life. Crazy, but normal.

Telling Rachel's dads was supposed to be similar, a little less crazy, but similar.

From the minute they stepped through the door on Sunday morning, Puck knew something was wrong. There was a tension between Rachel's dads that he had never felt before.

Things were completely awkward and tense during brunch, but after a hushed discussion while her dads are in the kitchen, they decided to go ahead with telling them about the baby.

When they were all seated around the table again, Rachel had placed her hand in his under the table, and was about to open her mouth, when Kevin had started talking.

"Kitten, Daddy and I…" Brian cleared his throat and Kevin started again, "I have something to tell you." Puck knew right away that this was bad news, stroking Rachel's knuckles as her grip on his hand tightened. He knew exactly what she was thinking, that one of her dads was sick, but Puck knew that wasn't it.

"Kitten, I've decided to move out." Rachel pulled her hand out of his.

"What? Why?" She looked between her dads. Brian looked just devastated.

"I…"

"He met someone else." Brian said bitterly. He got the distinct impression that Kevin would have preferred to keep that piece of news under wraps.

"How could you…" Rachel started but she was crying and couldn't carry on.

"I didn't mean for it to happen. But once you meet her, you'll love her." Even Puck, who pissed his wife off more than most men, knew that was exactly the wrong thing to say.

"Her?" Rachel had wailed.

"You can't help who you fall in love with, honey. You should know that." Kevin's eyes had flicked to him and Puck had suddenly felt like that college kid who first came home with Rachel all those years ago.

Things had gone downhill from there. Brian had looked like he was going to crumple into a ball at any moment. Kevin was trying unsuccessfully to defend his choices. Rachel, already emotional because of her pregnancy, had been a sobbing mess. And in a role completely foreign to him, Puck had become the peacemaker.

He had managed to get Kevin to leave, leaving Brian and Rachel crying in the living room. He had somehow managed to get Rachel back to his mom's house and onto the plane back home, verging on tears the entire time.

Needless to say, they didn't end up telling her dads about the baby.

She's been like this for the whole week though, lying in bed and alternating between crying and staring into space. She won't even talk to him.

He knows it sucks. You'd think it would be different as an adult, but he knows it's not. Puck knows that this is just as painful for Rachel now as it was for him when his dad left. Sure, he's not leaving her, but he's turning her world upside down. Everything that she knew, all that security, is gone.

He also knows that this is a shitty time for this to happen. Because she needs her dads right now.

"Rachel, can you at least talk to me?" He asks her as he moves into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed next to her.

"I thought they would be together forever."

"I know, babe."

"I thought he loved Daddy. Daddy's so hurt and he just stopped loving him. He just went out and met someone new and is starting a whole new life." Rachel suddenly bursts into tears again. "I don't want to be all alone."

"You're not. I'm right here."

"But you could meet someone and leave…" It sucks that she's doubting him, but he gets that her whole world is falling apart.

"I will never leave you. I will never hurt you. And I will never, ever stop loving you. Ever."

"But…"

"No buts. I will never stop loving you. And I will never stop loving our baby. I know that you're hurt right now, but our life together is not going to change. Everyone else can change, but you and me? We're stone, baby." He leans over and kisses her forehead, before standing up.

"Where are you going?" Rachel asks, her voice small.

"Nowhere." He tells her as he walks around the bed and lies down behind her. "I'm not going anywhere."


	16. I'm A Strong Girl

Puck's kinda been caught up in his own drama.

He and Lauren had been going strong all summer and had decided to take their relationship to the next level. It was kind of disastrous, and it had nothing to do with the fact that she's kinda large. Seriously, worst fuck ever. And he managed to knock up Quinn.

And apparently practice doesn't make perfect. Or at least that's what Lauren tells him when she breaks up with him. In the quad. At lunch. In front of everyone.

That all happens at the same time that Quinn decides to go to therapy to work through some of her issues. So he has to go through all of that. It's a good thing, because Quinn is finally dealing with things and getting some closure, but it takes a lot out of him. Like, emotionally and shit.

Just because all this crap has been happening in his life, though, doesn't mean that he hasn't noticed that Rachel's having a really hard time, too.

Her nana died at the beginning of the month, and he knows that they were really close. He can only imagine how he would feel if Nana Connie died, so he knows she's feeling really bad about that.

Finn breaks up with her for something really stupid. Again. He can guarantee that Rachel is not going after Sam. A, because she and Sam are always talking about how they're like brother and sister, and second, because he knows that even though no one else knows, Rachel knows that Sam and Mercedes are a thang, and Mercedes would cut Rachel if she made a move on her man.

Rachel arranges a kickass acoustic version of a new pop song and Schue gives the solo to the new girl.

And he watches her smile through the whole thing. Until today.

The only thing Santana and Quinn can agree on is the fact that they hate Rachel. Santana's being a bitch about this whole "Lebanese"/Brittany thing and Quinn apparently hasn't had enough therapy to not hate Rachel.

They've been working on the choreography for one of their big group numbers for weeks and something just isn't working. Brittany and Mike have been trying to work it out, but it leaves them standing around a lot.

Rachel is standing off to the side, but you'd have to be deaf not to hear Quinn and Santana. At least today they're not bitching her out to her face. Her shoulders are all high like they get when she's upset.

They've just been called back to go over the new choreography, and it's obvious that at least half the group has no idea what they're doing.

Somehow Rachel gets boxed into a small space at the front of the stage near the piano, and when the new kid next to her moves the wrong way, Rachel trips over the piano bench.

It happens in slow motion, but he still doesn't get to her fast enough. He's a row behind and two people over.

He watches as her ankle catches the leg of the bench and she stumbles, hitting her side on the corner of the bench before hitting her knees. She's so close to the edge of the stage that when she puts her hands out to break her fall, her hands are too far past and she hits her chin on the edge of the stage before landing flat out.

Rachel is completely still until he and Mike finally reach her and help her up and sit her on the piano bench. She's clearly shocked for a minute.

"Rachel, are you okay?" Mr. Schue asks. She has tears in her eyes as she tries to stand.

"I'm fine." The effect is kinda ruined when she stands up holding her side and shifts the weight off her right leg immediately.

"Okay, guys, let's give Rachel a couple minutes. We'll keep practicing."

As Puck is helping her to a seat in the auditorium, it's clear to him that she's not okay. She's limping and wincing every time she tries to take a breath.

"Lemme see." He says as he sits in the seat next t her and tries to lift her shirt.

"Noah!" She says, all scandalized.

"Relax, I'm not tryin' to cop a feel." When he pokes at her side a bit, she cries out and he knows he has to take her to the hospital.

Schue clearly doesn't give a shit, so he just packs her into his truck and heads to the hospital. His mom's on shift in the ER so he knows Rachel'll get seen quick.

His mom gets a resident to look at Rachel right away and when she gets sent for an x-ray, Puck goes with her. Her knee, which is already starting to bruise, has an ice pack strapped to it.

"You want me to call one of your dads?" He hears a little sniffle before she answers.

"They're out of town." He turns his head to look at her and sees her wipe a tear from her face.

"Shit, you're really having a month aren't you?"

"I'm fine."

"You don't have to lie to me."

"I'm not lying. It's called self-preservation. If I let them know they've gotten to me, it'll be so much worse."

"Well, I know they've gotten to you and I'm the only one here so cry it out or whatever girls do. I won't tell anyone." He wraps his arm around her and kisses her temple as she starts to really cry.

His mom calls her dads and they both agree to let Puck stay with Rachel until her dads can get back to town.

She's just changed and he's helped her get comfortable in her dad's recliner, when she asks him why he's being so nice to her.

"You're going through shit, I'm going through shit. Might as well go through shit together."

"Charming." She says dryly as she turns on the TV.

"Is that any way to talk to your new BFF? You could hurt my delicate feelings." Laughter bubbles from her mouth as he picks out a DVD to watch.

He thinks his feelings will be fine as long as she keeps laughing.


	17. I'm Sorry

Now that Rachel is a bit of a celebrity (understatement), they get invited to a lot of industry events. Puck isn't totally against going to these things. Some he fuckin' hates going to, but for the most part it's not that bad. There's free booze and awesome food. Plus he looks badass in a tux. The downside is that half the events they go to are fundraisers. He fuckin' hates it when the charity is some lame ass bid for publicity, but when the cause is for kids with cancer or whatever, he's totally down. Other than that he kinda doesn't pay attention.

So he's in his tux and Rachel's all dolled up and looking fuckin' gorgeous, as usual. And like he said, he doesn't hate these things, he's just really glad this one's over. They're finally getting back into the car after spending an entire night rubbing elbows with people he doesn't actually give a fuck about unless Rachel tells him he should. He's just pulled into traffic, when he hears Rachel groan. He takes a quick glance at her to find her slipping her heels off.

"Oh, god. I'm never wearing heels again. My feet are killing me."

"I'm gonna remind you of this moment the next time we go to one of these deals."

"Please do. I never seem to learn my lesson." From the corner of his eye, he can see her pulling her hair down. "I am exhausted."

"You're exhausted?" He asks. "I spent my whole night trying to keep that fuckin' creepy little dude away from you. He's fuckin' everywhere."

"And I appreciate it. You know how much I hate David Spade."

"Was he there?" Puck asks as he pulls into their parking spot. "You hate that dude."

"I really, really do." He rounds the car as Rachel slips her shoes back on. He pulls open her door and helps her out before they both head into the building.

It's not until they're climbing into bed that Rachel goes back to their conversation.

"Wait a minute. If you didn't know that David Spade was at the party, who were you trying to keep away from me?"

"That weirdo red muppet."

"Red muppet?" She asks curiously, trying to think which of the Muppets were at the party tonight.

"You know, the one that's always surrounded by chicks. I know how much you hate players."

"I'm sorry, but are you honestly trying to tell me that Elmo is a player?" She will not laugh. She will not laugh. "The cute little red muppet who lives on Sesame Street?"

"Please. Have you ever seen that mofo with all those celebrity chicks when they meet him? He's all up on them, baby. I couldn't do that to you. And don't get me started on the whole Tickle-Me-Elmo thing. Yeah, buddy, I'm on to you, I know _exactly _what you want tickled."

And that's when Rachel falls apart. She honestly cannot stop laughing. Noah is just sitting next to her in bed looking at her like she's crazy, but she can't stop.

"Oh, my, goodness." She manages once she can finally breathe. "He doesn't even have a penis, Noah. He's a puppet."

"Whatever, Rachel. No wife of mine is going anywhere near that little perv. And don't think for a minute that he's gonna get within a mile of our girl." He says before he leans over and kisses her belly.

A man's gotta protect his girls.


	18. Kissing Daddy

"I hate you!" Juliet yells from her bedroom before slamming the door.

Puck takes a deep breath and scrubs his hands over his face. He looks at Rachel and wonders how she can stay so calm when their daughter is practically breathing fire over not being allowed to go to a concert.

He flops down on the sofa and flips on the TV to check the scores.

His eye catches on one of the photos on the shelf next to the TV. It's just a random photo that Rachel took, a moment in time that's gone now.

Puck can still feel the sun on his face and Juliet's lips on his cheek before she had proclaimed that his face was "yucky". He remembers rubbing his face all against her tiny face and little belly, her shrieks of laughter still loud in his ear.

Not for the first time he wonders how his cute little daughter, immortalized at three in the photo, can become the snarling, angry wreck that just left the room.

Juliet is 16, and the truth is she's not a bad kid. She doesn't get in trouble at school, does her homework, helps around the house and gets along with her siblings. She can actually carry on a conversation with an adult, not just grunt at them like most kids her age. She's responsible. He also knows that she isn't going to sneak out if they tell her she can't go to this concert. She'll raise hell over the decision but she'll obey them. She's just that kind of kid.

"We should probably let her go to this concert." He tells Rachel.

"I know." Rachel doesn't even look up from her magazine.

"What d'ya mean, you know? You told her she couldn't go too."

"We present a united front. We always have, we always will. You said no, so I said no." She finally looks up from her magazine. "But, Noah, Juliet is 16. She's responsible. She wants to go see Adele at the concert hall, in town, with her equally responsible best friend, not drive to an arena four hours away to see Maroon 5 with her mohawked boyfriend."

"Hey!" He says offended. "That was our first real date."

"Yes, which my fathers let me go to because they trusted me, the same way that we trust Juliet."

"I just…"

"Wish she was still a baby?"

"Yeah."

"She'll always be our baby."

And when Juliet and her friend, Demi, get home from the concert and she throws her arms around him and kisses his cheek before heading to her room, he knows that Rachel is right.

She's still his baby girl, and she's still the girl in the picture.


	19. Love Is Not A Maybe Thing

Debbie Puckerman is making herself a cup of tea when she hears her son's truck pull into the driveway.

She gets out two extra mugs and puts on a pot of tea instead of making the single cup she had planned. She's been so happy to have Noah home for the holidays. The first few weeks after he left for school were wonderful. She had peace in her house for the first time in years.

But as the weeks had gone by, Debbie had started to miss her son. She missed the things he did around the house that he deemed to be a man's job, his sense of humour that was somewhat risqué but always funny, the way she could always tell he was home because of the way he flung his belongings carelessly around the house, and a million other things.

Having him home has been so nice. And having Rachel around is an added bonus.

Truthfully, Rachel has been a permanent fixture in her son's life since he was released from juvie. Noah had come out knowing that he needed to make serious changes in his life. He finally realized that no one was going to hand Beth back to him and that Quinn really didn't want anything to do with him. So he was going to grow up and move on with his life. Debbie really doesn't think he would have stuck with it if it hadn't been for Rachel.

Rachel was always over making sure that Noah did his homework or was participating in extracurricular activities, not just wasting his life in front of his video games.

Debbie used to pray every night that Rachel would break up with Finn. She'd known Finn for years and while he was a wonderful boy, he wasn't the right boy for Rachel. Now people might think that she was slightly biased, but even before Rachel started helping Noah, she knew that Finn and Rachel weren't meant for each other. Rachel was strong and passionate and she needed someone just as strong and passionate to push her and help her grow. Besides, Finn would never truly know what it meant to be a Jew.

When she saw the connection between her son and Rachel, she started to pray that God would bring them together. And God had answered her prayers, slowly but surely.

Rachel and Finn mutually agreed to part ways the summer between their junior and senior years. Debbie didn't think it was possible, but Noah and Rachel started spending even more time together. Every time she turned around Rachel was over, or Noah was at Rachel's or they had gone somewhere together.

It wasn't until Noah got his acceptance letter from NYU that there was any romantic development in their relationship.

"_I swore I wouldn't be one of those pussies that couldn't open his own college letters, but I can't do it, Rach." Rachel had barely walked through the door before he was handing her the envelope._

"_Alright. Do you think you want to sit down before you hear the news?" She asked. _

"_Just open the damn letter." Rachel tore open the letter and quickly scanned the contents._

"_You got in!" She cried as she threw her arms around Noah. Her son had stood immobile while the news set in._

"_I got in?" Rachel had pulled back to look at him. _

"_Looks like you're stuck with me." They had grinned at each other and then she was watching her son kiss Rachel. _

_She'd gone back into the kitchen to give them their privacy, saying a quick prayer of thanks as she went._

Nothing had really changed. She'd just walk in on them making out from time to time.

So she finds it very unusual when she turns from the counter to see Noah enter the kitchen without Rachel.

"Where's Rachel?" She asks.

"Nice to see you too, Ma." Noah moves to the fridge to grab a bottle of water.

"Hello, Noah. It's just that you and Rachel are usually attached at the hip."

"She's at home. She wanted to…She's at home." It's the brusque tone of his voice that makes her look more closely at him. Noah would like to think he's hard to read, but when he's emotional his face is so open that it's impossible not to know something is wrong.

"Baby, what's wrong?" She pulls out two chairs at their worn kitchen table and tries not to think about the day they sat in these same seats as he told her about another girl with blonde hair and a growing belly and the hole she carries in her heart for the granddaughter she'll never get to know.

"Nothing." He says as he slumps into his chair and reaches for a cookie on the table.

"Noah?" She watches him take a huge bite of his cookie and chew methodically before he answers.

"She…she told me she loves me, okay?"

"And this surprised you?"

"Yes…No…I don't know. Kinda?" Oh, her poor, emotionally stunted little boy.

"Walk me through it. Tell me what happened. You want a cup of tea?" She moves to the counter to fix her own cup of tea.

"Sure. Well, we were havin' dinner with her dads and she was yappin' about how awful her roommate is and how expensive New York is, and Mark suggested that we move in together next year. And then we're up in her room and she's all pretty, with her eyes and her hair and then she's telling me she loves me."

"And do you love her?"

"Maybe." Debbie sets a cup of tea in front of Noah and retakes her seat.

"Noah, love is not a maybe thing. You know when you love someone." He looks at her carefully, like he's thinking about what he wants to say. He always looks that way when he's going to ask about his dad.

"Did you know?" She runs her thumb over the worn band she still wears on her left hand.

"I did. But don't judge your relationship with Rachel on us. We didn't have the solid foundation that you and Rachel have." He takes the information in as he grabs another cookie. "What kind of a timeframe are you looking at with Rachel?"

"What?" Noah looks at her blankly.

"Is this just a college thing? Are you with her until something better comes along?" She knows she's pushing his buttons, but sometimes that's the only way to get through to him.

"No! It's a forever kinda thing." She smiles at him slowly.

"Then that's your answer. Love is a forever kinda thing." Noah brushes his hands on his pants, stands and bends over to kiss her forehead.

"You know, you're pretty much batnuts 90% of the time, but the other 10% you're kinda awesome." She laughs loudly.

"I'll take what I can get, I guess." She tells him. "Now go tell your girl you love her."


	20. Love U

Part of Rachel's daily routine is to send Noah a quick text once she's gotten Nate and Joy off to school for the afternoon. It actually started before the kids were going to school, back when they went for afternoon naps right after lunch. At the time, Noah was working a job that didn't really allow for phone calls, but a quick text message was alright. It kept Rachel sane. It's so engrained now that she doesn't even think before she picks up her phone.

'_Love u'_ She types out.

'_How's the morning sickness?'_ Noah replies. It's a bit of a joke between them. Her "morning sickness" has always hit right around noon, effectively making it "afternoon sickness".

'_Not too bad today. I can't believe we're having another baby :)'_ She really can't believe it. It wasn't something they really talked about. Yes, they wanted children, as in more than one, but they never sat down and had a conversation about it. They had gone on vacation after they'd been married for a few years, and Rachel had forgotten her birth control pills. They decided that getting pregnant wouldn't be the worst thing, and she just didn't start taking her pills again when they got home.

Nate was born a year later, and Joy was born when Nate was two. Money was tight after Joy was born, and they had an unspoken agreement that two was enough. They were happy with their little family.

Noah has a much better job now, and she has a few students that she teaches music to and that brings in a little extra cash. Nate is eight, and Joy is six and has just started full days at school. Rachel had just felt like now was the perfect time to have another baby.

Before she could even broach the subject with Noah, her doctor had called her with the news that she was already pregnant. Noah had seemed a little reluctant at first, but once he got over the initial shock, he had been just as excited for this baby as he had been for Nate and Joy.

So his next text catches her off guard.

'_I'm leaving you'_ Her heart is in her throat and she can feel her stomach rolling as she types her next message.

'_WHAT?'_ His reply is almost instantaneous.

'_now. I'm leaving work NOW. I am NOT leaving you!'_ Rachel's heart is back in her chest, but her stomach is still heaving.

'_Now I'm really gonna throw up_' She doesn't even wait for his reply before dropping her phone on the counter and dashing to the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later Noah is holding her hair and rubbing her back as she leans over the toilet.

"I'm so sorry, babe. It's my stupid phone."

"I know." She thinks she might actually be finished, so she lets Noah guide her to a sitting position on the edge of the tub. "Just for a minute, I thought maybe you had changed your mind about the baby."

He's standing at the sink getting her a glass of water and her toothbrush. He scoffs, and she thinks maybe she's offended him. Rachel knows that Noah is never leaving her, and even if he were going to, he'd still be the same fantastic father he is now. Once she gives her brain a second to catch up, she tries to take it back.

"Relax, babe. I know pregnancy brain when I hear it." She does relax as she brushes her teeth and takes a sip of water.

He gets her to sit at the kitchen table while he makes her latkes, the only food that they have discovered she can keep down when her morning sickness is really terrible.

"I know you didn't get pregnant on purpose." He says out of the blue. "But even if you had, I'd still be here."

It's an odd statement, but every once in a while he says something like that. He likes to remind them both that he's a better man than his father.


	21. Mommy

Maybe he's sensitive because of his history, but Puck hates the term "unplanned pregnancy". It makes him sound like a teenager. He's a grown man in a committed relationship with a woman that he loves (and no he's not too much of a pussy to admit that). He and Rachel may not have planned their son but that doesn't mean that he isn't loved or wanted or everything that every baby should be.

So it really pisses him off that his mom (who's practically been poking holes in his condoms since he started dating Rachel) keeps using that term. She loves Max to bits, but it's her way of making it known that she wishes he and Rachel were married.

Ideally, they would be. He's known since their second date that he was going to marry her someday. They've talked about it (long after that second date), but they were focusing on their careers and figured they would have lots of time to get married. Once they were pregnant, they didn't really want to rush around trying to plan a wedding when they had more important things to think about.

But Max is almost a year now and the way Puck looks at it, there's always going to be a reason not to get married. He wants to make an honest woman of her.

So the next time they go home to Lima to visit the parents, he takes the ring he's had for a lot longer than he'd like to admit.

He has a couple of kickass ideas about how to propose. He thinks about taking her to the bleachers at the school where he first admitted that he liked her more than he should, but it doesn't feel right. In the end, he thinks using the baby is the best idea.

Rachel usually feeds Max while Puck is in the shower, and then Puck gets Max dressed while Rachel is in the shower. He talks to his son as he dresses him in the little white onesie, the green hooded sweater his sister made for Max, and his little jeans (you don't know cute until you dress a baby in a tiny pair of jeans). Then he and Max head downstairs to hang out with his mom and sister and wait for Rachel's dads to show up.

No one has any idea what he has planned except Max, and the kid isn't going to spill the beans. Right on schedule, Max has his daily poop and needs to be changed. The whole family looks at him like he's crazy when he insists that Rachel change Max, even though his mom offered.

Puck is waiting for the squeal of joy to come down the stairs, but instead Rachel huffs back into the room with a half-dressed Max, the 'Mommy, will you marry Daddy?' clearly visible on the front of his onesie, and thrusts him into his arms before turning on his mom.

"Debbie, I honestly can't believe that you would stoop so low as to use your grandson in an attempt to trick me into thinking that Noah had proposed." Puck pulls the ring box out of his pocket and opens it, making sure to keep it far away from Max (kid likes shiny things). Every eye in the room, except Rachel's, is on the box in Puck's hand. "Noah and I will get married when we feel like it, not a moment sooner. And why are you looking at me like I'm crazy?"

"Babe." Rachel whips her head around and her mouth pops open in surprise.

"Oh!" He moves to a standing position, Max squirming in his arms.

"Rachel, will…"

"Yes!"

"You didn't hear the question." Puck chuckles, passing Max off to Rachel's dad.

"I read the shirt." He takes her hand in his and slides the ring on her finger before kissing her.

"Honestly, if I had known a t-shirt was all it would take…"


	22. Morning Announcements

Quinn might've been onto something all those times she called him a moron.

It all starts with Finn and Rachel. They're totally into each other and all sick and in love...until school starts again. And then the glee club is kinda watching the whole thing implode. And he always thought that it would be Rachel's fault. Chick's right...she's totally high maintenance. He'd have figured they'd have broken up about 80 times, considering how much that girl loves to make a dramatic exit. Surprisingly, it's Finn that's doing the walking.

They last until the beginning of January, when Rachel finds out that even though she 'fessed up about the fact that she hadn't really done the deed with Pussy St. Douchebag, Finn hadn't told her the truth about bumping uglies with Santana. That shit there? That's an epic mistake. Quinn probably has a poster of him with the words "World's Worst Boyfriend" on it, so if he thinks it's a mistake, it's a mistake.

The glee club waits for Rachel to just break down. And he totally couldn't have blamed her (Kurt would've, but that dude has issues). But nothing happens. For weeks. Valentine's Day rolls around. Finn and Santana start knocking boots on a regular basis and still nothing. Whenever anyone asks how she is, she says "I'm fine, thank you for asking", gives them a blinding show smile (not her real smile), and immediately starts flapping her trap about something.

In March, Mr. Schue goes on an "international music" kick. He and Rachel are paired together for choreography on "Love You Anyway". She's not singing lead, but they really need her for harmonies. They're struggling already, but without her the song falls to crap. The two of them have been going along just fine, so he notices right away when she stops singing. She's still dancing, but she's not singing.

After the third time that Finn steps on Tina's foot coming out of a spin, Rachel asks for a break. She doesn't even wait for an answer, just bolts from the room. He makes it into the hall just as she's disappearing into the girls' bathroom.

He manages to convince Quinn to go make sure she's okay. Don't call him insensitive.

Quinn finds her sobbing in one of the stalls. And it's not even because she wants Finn back. It's because she's lonely. Some maternal instinct shit that Quinn tried to bury suddenly comes to the surface and suddenly almost all his free time is spent with Rachel, Quinn and Mercedes.

In April, he and the Witches of Eastwick (yeah, that shit's brilliant) are supposed to go to the Laser Queen show at the planetarium, but Mercedes' grandma has a stroke and she and Quinn bail. That leaves him and Rachel.

"Well, we can postpone until Mercedes and Quinn can attend with us. I'm sure you have better ways to spend your Saturday." Why does she always have to do that? Make it sound like it's this huge ass chore to spend time with her. When she unclenches for like five minutes, she's actually kinda awesome.

"Fuck, Rach. I got a full tank and if I go home now, my mom'll make me mow the lawn or help her with spring cleaning or some shit. So grab your coat and let's bounce."

He spends like half the show watching Rachel.

So it shouldn't come as shock that they hook up at the end of April. But it totally does. When he finds a chick he wants to do, there's a goal, some effort, and a plan. Not a lot of effort, 'cause have you seen him? He's a stud. But some effort. Not with Rachel.

One minute they're laughing about some movie he'd've bet good money she'd never heard of and the next he's balls deep in Rachel Berry. And then it's like he fucking blinks and she's dressed saying "Thank you" in her little Disney princess voice and she's gone.

And when he sees her at school the next day? She totally acts like nothing even happened. Fuck his life.

See, now he doesn't know if he pretends like it never happened. Or if he gets all lame and asks her about it.

When it keeps happening, he figures he doesn't need to ask. If she had a problem, they wouldn't still be fucking.

And it's awesome, 'cause they spend all of their time together over the summer. Sometimes they hang out with Chocolate and Vanilla Thunder, but mostly they hang out together. Mostly without clothes on. Double awesome.

But then him mom has to go and ruin it by calling Rachel is girlfriend at dinner one night. And he's all "Ma, she's not my fucking girlfriend. Back the fuck off." Which earns him a Gibbs slap (seriously, he knows his mom's got serious lady wood for Mark Harmon, but if she doesn't stop Gibbs slapping him, his brain is legit gonna fly out his eye sockets).

Later that night, she gets all quiet and says if he doesn't want to tell anyone about them, she's cool with keeping them on the quiet. He just says "cool". Check one for moron.

And then they're back at school, and is it just him or do her skirts seem shorter this year? And suddenly he notices that every guy in the fucking school notices her short skirts. And he can't even fucking do anything about it because they're "just friends". Check two for moron.

Fuck that noise.

But every time he tries to bring it up, Rachel tells him that he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't feel comfortable with and changes the subject. Isn't she supposed to have to chase him around trying to get him to agree to be her boyfriend? This ain't natural.

The day that he sees Karofsky practically pinning her against her locker is the day that he loses his shit. Girl is his. No one touches his stuff (some lessons didn't stick in kindergarten).

And if Rachel won't talk to him (unnatural) then he's gonna do it the hard way.

Artie hooks him up with some dude in the a/v club that does one of the school's intercom radio shows. He pays the dweeb well to get his message on the air.

His announcement plays the next morning before homeroom.

"This next song is classic. Queen's Killer Queen goes out to Rachel Berry, requested by her boyfriend, Puck."

Quinn can't say he doesn't learn from his mistakes.


	23. My Boyfriend Was Hanging Out

When Rachel first gets the call, her instinct is to say no. Her relationship with Noah has just started to get serious, and she doesn't think four weeks apart is a good idea at the moment.

It's just that not everyone gets invited to participate in a four week musical theatre program at Cambridge. There are going to be some world class actors and singers there. This is, really, the opportunity of a lifetime.

Rachel decides that she'll do the mature thing and talk to Noah about it, instead of hiding it and being crazy.

In typical Noah fashion, he tells her "there's no fuckin' way you're turning down going to some fancy ass school because of me. Get packed, babe. You're going."

That really settles it, but she's still worried about their relationship. Noah promises he'll call her every night before she goes to bed.

So far he hasn't missed a night.

* * *

><p>He calls her every night at five (ten her time). Doesn't matter what the fuck he's doing, he calls her at five.<p>

And he's not gonna miss making this call, just 'cause he's gone home for the weekend.

Finn convinced him to come home the same weekend that Mike and Sam were going to be in town. So Finn's having a lame ass barbecue (lame ass 'cause Finn doesn't know how to grill and the moron's already burned his hand).

So at five, he grabs a beer and heads to a corner of the lawn to make his call to Rachel.

He's ten minutes into the call when Mike (the ass) yells at him across the lawn.

"What happened to bros before hoes?"

He can hear Rachel gasp on the other end of the line. He just laughs.

"She's not a hoe, so she comes first!" He yells back across the yard.

"Noah Puckerman!" He figures he's about to get it, but he's surprised. "I think that may be the sweetest thing you've ever said about me."

"The sweetest thing I've ever said about you is that I don't think you're a hoe?"

"You forget that I know you." Rachel giggles over the line. "I take what I can get."


	24. Nerd?

Puck is a bit late leaving, so he doesn't have time to change out of his scrubs before he leaves the hospital to pick up Sophie. He hates showing up at the school in scrubs.

Sophie is their youngest. He and Rachel weren't planning on having another baby when they found out Rachel was pregnant. They already had three teenagers. Max was 19 and already in college, Lily was 17, and Joel was 14. It's a little weird that his oldest is now 31 and his youngest is 12, but he can't imagine life without Sophie.

From finding pot in the house to pregnancy scares and a million other parental horrors, his other kids had caused their fair share of trouble. Unlike her siblings, Sophie hasn't given him a day of trouble in her life, with the exception of the day that she almost hanged herself on the guest bed at his mom's place (scariest damn day of his life).

Sophie is happy and bubbly. She's friendly and easygoing, and there isn't a trace of stubbornness in her anywhere, which is a miracle considering how stubborn everyone else in the family is.

He pulls into the parking lot and sees her bright pink backpack making its way through the crowd. He immediately knows that something is wrong, because instead of her sunny smile, she looks like she might cry.

Both he and Rachel have been waiting for teenage tendencies to take over, and while they have noticed that she's looking less and less like a child, she's still their Sophie. He's really hoping that this doesn't have anything to do with her period. He might be a doctor, but there are certain things that are mom territory.

"What's up, kiddo?" He asks as she climbs into the backseat of the car. She may be 12, but she definitely inherited Rachel's genes when it came to size, so she's still relegated to the backseat.

"I had a bad day." She tells him. His other kids might have sullenly responded that nothing was wrong, but Sophie has always been honest.

"What happened?" He signals to pull into traffic.

"Tyler called me a nerd and a four-eyes in front of the whole class, and they all laughed." She wipes angrily at a tear that has leaked out.

The glasses are a new addition. They'd been wondering about her eyesight for a while, and the optometrist had confirmed their suspicions a few weeks ago. Sophie and Rachel had picked out little pink frames, and Sophie had been so pleased with them since she got them last week.

"And what did you say?"

"Nothing. Mrs. Duncan started dodge ball." She turns to look out the window which usually means that she doesn't want to talk. He'll try again when they get home.

* * *

><p>"Tyler called her a nerd?" Rachel asks later that night as they're getting into bed.<p>

"Little dickhead." He mutters.

"Noah!" She laughs. "He's 12."

"So's Soph, and she isn't going around making fun of people."

"True. She said you told her a secret nerd word." He chuckles, because that sounds exactly like Sophie.

"I told her that the next time Tyler calls her a nerd, to tell him that she prefers the term intellectual badass."

"Noah! She's 12."

"Look, she's entering the teen years, and this is exactly when they stop being equals. Boys start to think they have all the power and girls believe them. If we don't teach her self-respect, who the hell else is going to?"

"But still, intellectual badass?"

"Just like her pops."


	25. Our Son Just Called

They've been having a nice day. It's the first time in a while that he's been able to say that.

They've been having a lot of trouble with their oldest. His grades have been slipping, his attitude's fucking awful, and he's just generally being a little shit-disturber. Puck loves the kid, but it's nice to have a day away from him.

Joel's currently in his third week of an eight week grounding for a combination of things: failing two major tests at school, throwing a disabled kid into a dumpster, locking Lily in her room and going out with his friends while he was supposed to be babysitting her, calling his teacher a fucking lunatic, and punching a hole in the wall.

Frankly, most of it is all stuff that he did back in his teenage years, and some of it is pretty tame compared to what he did (slashed tires, pregnant cheerleader, stolen ATM), but he doesn't take well to coming home to his eight year old crying in her bedroom, fucking starving and thinking that he and Rachel are gonna be mad at her because she wet her pants after being locked in her room for six hours. Hell, he can't go six hours without a piss.

Rachel's totally against corporal punishment of any kind. Puck thinks if his mom had doled out a few more smacks he might not have been so screwed up. So he's always been in charge of that. It's strictly a last resort-consequence of an action thing, and he's never hit any of his kids out of anger. But he came damn close that day. Kid's lucky Rachel's his mom or he woulda taken him out behind the garage and belted him one. At 17, the kid's almost a man and he'd kill any man who threatened his family in any way, shape or form.

But Rachel's really crafty about punishments. Like Joel's grounded for eight weeks, and he's got a list of chores as long as his list of offences that he has to complete before they'll lift the grounding. On top of which, Rachel has him signed up to help out at the arena where Lily trains so he's too busy to actually work on the chores, and Rachel insists on seeing his homework every night. The kid'll be lucky if he's ungrounded by the time he's 30.

Plus he took Joel aside and basically put the fear of god into him and told him that if he ever pulled a stunt like that again, he'd ship him off to military school.

So Joel's at home, probably breaking all the rules that he and Rachel have set out for him, but at least they're all getting a break from him. They can deal with the fallout later.

Lily just scored a personal best in her latest skating competition and the girl's been working like a demon so they're taking her out to celebrate.

So he and Rachel are taking Lily and Ben (their middle child) to the indoor farmers' market. Then they're gonna go for lunch and either mini-golf or bowling before they go to the movies. Normally, they wouldn't cram so much into one day, but they've both been real troopers during all this crap with Joel and both he and Rachel want them to enjoy the day, because they have no idea when they're going to get another Joel-free day.

Ben and Lily love the market. Lily is taken with all the handcrafted jewelry on display and stops at every booth to look at every necklace she sees. Girl loves anything shiny. Seriously, wave a piece of tinfoil in front of her face and she's totally distracted. He and Ben check out the art that's being sold. The kid's like wicked into art of any kind and thinks it's awesome that so many different types of artists have found a place to sell their work. Puck kinda does too. He and Rachel love the buskers and Rachel gets all mushy when a string quartet plays their wedding song.

They let Lily pick the restaurant for lunch, and he's not exactly surprised when she picks Mickey D's. At least his kids are semi-normal. Only weirdo kids don't want to go for a Happy Meal.

They make it to the bowling alley and are halfway through their second game when Rachel's phone rings. Which isn't unusual. Her damn phone is always ringing. Rachel's a producer at a large music label and they apparently can't do anything without her (they really can't, 'cause his girl's fuckin' awesome) because they're always calling her.

When she comes back, she looks awful and he thinks someone must have died.

"Our son just called." Great, his house has probably been burned down. "From jail."

"Nice! What'd the little fucker do this time?"

"Noah!" Rachel cries. "Don't call our son that!"

"Why not? It's what he is. What'd he do?"

"He got pulled over for speeding and his blood alcohol was above the legal limit."

"Who the fuck gets pulled over for a DUI in the middle of the afternoon?" He demands. Rachel looks like she's about to burst into tears.

"Can we just finish our game? Then we'll pick him up."

"Rach, we're gonna spend our day exactly the way we planned. I'm not ruining the day to go bail out our idiot son."

"Noah, we can't just leave him there!" The thought of leaving her baby boy in prison makes the tears fall.

"Cool your jets, Rach. I'm not suggesting we leave him in Rikers for the night. He can manage a night in the county jail, with Bernie to keep an eye on him. It'll do him good. I'm sick of basically rewarding him for his crap-ass behavior and neglecting our other kids because they can behave themselves. I don't even remember the last time I had an uninterrupted conversation with Ben before today. You know there's a girl?"

"Really?" Rachel's eyes light up as she gets distracted from the situation with Joel.

"Her name's Annie. He's trying to downplay it, but he really likes her."

"Is she Jewish?" She asks excitedly before shaking her head and folding her arms across her chest. "No! It's wonderful that Ben has met a girl that he likes, but it's not as important as making sure Joel's on the right path. This could be a slippery slope. Who knows what other acts of delinquency he's committed? And if he's starting down the road to alcoholism, we need to nip that in the bud right now. We might need to check him into rehab."

"Would you relax? If he's got a problem with the bottle, we'll deal with that. Right now something's going on with him and I don't know what it is, but I know that a night in jail isn't gonna make it any worse. It did me a world of good."

"You hated being in juvenile detention."

"Yeah, it sucked ass, but it was the best thing that could have happened to me then."

"You had a lot of things going on in your life. Beth and Quinn and your dad leaving."

"Exactly, Joel's got a dad. And I'm gonna get him through this."

"I just feel like we've failed him somehow." She looks away from him, over at Ben and Lily. Rachel doesn't understand how she can have two kids who are so happy and well-adjusted and another kid sitting in a jail cell.

"We haven't failed him. You're a great mom, but we've been doing it your way and it's not working. We've taken things away and grounded him and given him community service, but it's not working. Now we're gonna try things my way. You just gotta trust that I know what I'm doing."

Rachel looks up at him through wet lashes. "Of course I trust you. If you think this is what's best for Joel, then it's what we'll do."

Puck takes her face in his hands and wipes her tears away before kissing her forehead.

"Now quit your crying and let's get back out there. An eight year old is beating you at bowling. Who taught you to bowl?"

She giggles before saying, "Finn."

"'Splains a lot." He says, laughing loudly.


	26. Overwhelmed At The Beach

She's trying really hard to hold it together until Mr. Schuester dismisses them. She really doesn't want to cry in front of the whole glee club.

Noah broke up with her right before this stupid meeting that Mr. Schuester is having to finalize their set list for Nationals. If anyone ever bothered to listen to her, they would have had their set list finalized weeks ago.

As soon as the meeting ends, she leaves the room and heads down to the beach.

* * *

><p>He spends the entire meeting trying to catch Rachel's eye. He knows that she's pissed at him for punching Finn, but she could at least acknowledge him. She's blinking all fast and her lips keep quivering, so he can tell she's trying not to cry.<p>

He figures she'll cry and ream him out when this dumbass meeting is over. If anyone listened to Rachel, this shit would have been done weeks ago.

She's the first person out of the room when Mr. Schue lets them go. He follows her down to the beach. As soon as she gets to the edge of the water she practically doubles over and starts crying.

* * *

><p>She's startled when she feels Noah's hand on her back, and she can see through his hair that he's crouching next to her in the sand. She hastily wipes her eyes and tries to get herself under control as she sits down.<p>

"Look, I know you're pissed, but you could at least talk to me." Noah sits down next to her.

"Why do you even care?" She's a little confused, frankly. Usually when people break up with her, they're not nice to her after.

"'Cause I'm your boyfriend, it's kinda part of the job description." Now she's really confused.

"You broke up with me!"

"What the fuck? When the hell did I do that?"

"Right before Mr. Schuester's meeting! You said 'We're done!'"

"Yeah, to fucking Finn."

"Oh. But…I kissed him."

"Okay, anybody with eyes could see that you were not into that. He's like twice your size and he had you pinned against the fucking wall. No dude takes advantage of any girl, especially my girl."

"So…you're still my boyfriend?" He answers by dropping his arm around her shoulders and kissing her on the cheek.

They sit in silence watching the sun set over the ocean, before Rachel turns to Noah.

"Did you have to punch him?"

"Just be glad I punched him in the stomach and not the face."


	27. Pick Me

It's all Rachel's fault.

He's a fucking badass. This shouldn't be happening to him.

He and Rachel figured out a long time ago that the key to a successful relationship is knowing that you don't have to be together all the time.

He doesn't drag her out to look at car parts, and she doesn't make him go shopping with her, dragging him around like some kind of pack mule.

He goes to the bar with his friends, and she does spa days with her friends. She has her friends; he has his. They have mutual friends that they do couple-y things with.

They do stuff together, too. They even do stuff that one person doesn't want to do. She doesn't want to go to his hockey games, but she goes anyway. He damn sure doesn't want to go "antiquing" (going through other peoples' garbage) on Sunday mornings, but he goes anyway.

The big key to their successful relationship? They have two TVs. So he can watch games while she watches her girly "he's so dreamy" crap.

But she and Quinn and Sam are always going nuts about McDreamy and McSteamy and McPrettyEyes and Little Grey and the Nazi.

That's when it happens.

"What's the big deal about damn Grey's Anatomy?"

He never should have opened his fucking trap.

* * *

><p>He figures he'll watch one episode. It'll be one Thursday night and then he'll be done with this crap.<p>

But Rachel tells him that he needs to get the "full effect", and apparently, to do that he needs to watch from the beginning. Rachel tells him that if he doesn't like it after one season, she'll never bring it up again.

It's 10 episodes. He'll watch them and then go drink beer and piss in the woods to make sure his manhood is still intact.

* * *

><p>They watch six episodes on a Sunday afternoon. And he'll admit that there are worse things in the world than sitting on your couch in the middle of a snowstorm, with your wife cuddled up against you, doing something that obviously makes her happy.<p>

That does not mean that he likes Grey's Anatomy.

* * *

><p>They have a snow day on the Monday. It's not like they're going anywhere anyway, so they might as well finish the season.<p>

And when he suggests that they just continue on with the next season, it is not because he likes Grey's Anatomy or is at all interested in what's going to happen to Meredith and McDreamy's relationship now that it turns out he has a wife.

If you ask him, dude's an idiot. Trying to hide women from each other is a dangerous game. Puck knows.

Not that he cares. It's snowing out and they have nothing better to do, so he might as well make Rachel happy.

* * *

><p>Rachel knows Noah. They've been together for a long time. She knows what he likes, what he doesn't like, what drives him crazy, what makes him tick.<p>

She knows that for the sake of his masculinity he's pretending not to enjoy watching Grey's.

He does an admirable job through season one. Although insisting that they immediately start watching season two was a bit of a tip off.

The minute she knows he's hooked is after Meredith's "Pick me. Choose me. Love me." speech.

"Guy's an idiot. You don't try to fight the crazy." He presses a kiss to the top of her head.

She'd be completely offended if she didn't find it so cute that he's so obviously hooked into this show that for years he's called the "gay or straight test".

* * *

><p>When Denny dies, Rachel cries like a baby. She always does. Noah just pauses the DVD and tells her to get her shit under control while he goes to get more popcorn.<p>

Rachel swears she hears sniffling from the kitchen. She's not foolish enough to ask about it.

* * *

><p>When they make it to season three, they spend almost as much time debating as they do watching the show. Rachel loves Burke and Cristina, but Noah hates Burke. He thinks Cristina would be better off on her own than in what he has termed an abusive relationship.<p>

Rachel thinks Burke just wants Cristina to be all that she can be. She doesn't tell Noah that by the end of the season she changed her mind and that she finds Owen to be a much better match for Cristina than Burke.

Noah thinks it's insane to want to change a woman that much. He loves Rachel exactly the way she is and if anyone tried to change her that much, she wouldn't be Rachel anymore.

* * *

><p>Puck and Rachel agree that the drama with McDreamy and Meredith is too much to take in season four. They both love Lexie and think Meredith needs to realize it's not Lexie's fault that they have an ass for a dad.<p>

* * *

><p>They have Quinn &amp; Sam over for dinner one night while they're in the middle of watching season five.<p>

Sam and Puck both love Hunt and McSteamy. Puck refuses to call him McSteamy. It's always Sloan.

Rachel and Quinn completely understand why Puck loves Sloan. He basically is Sloan. Playboy meets nice girl, falls in love and becomes domesticated.

* * *

><p>When they've finally caught up and they spend every Thursday watching Grey's and Private Practice (there are crossovers and you have to know what's going on), things start to get weird.<p>

Noah is always locking himself away in his "man cave". He won't let her use his laptop, and she's almost forbidden from even entering the room.

He spends hours on the phone with Sam. When he's done on the phone, then he says he's going out to meet Sam or Sam's coming over.

Both she and Quinn have overheard strange conversations with phrases like "that's way too big, it'll never fit" or "make him push it in real hard". Neither of them knows quite what to make of it.

"I think they might be looking at porn." Rachel tells Quinn over the phone after Sam and Noah have shut themselves away to "play video games" in Noah's den.

"First of all, Sam and I have an agreement. I put out regularly and he doesn't look at porn. If he does, I cut him off."

"I could never do that. There aren't enough batteries in the world."

"Dirty." Quinn giggles. "Secondly, why on earth would they be watching porn together?"

"Maybe they're having an affair." Rachel says, which sends both Quinn and Rachel into fits of laughter. The thought of either of their husbands having an affair isn't particularly funny, but the idea of their husbands having a torrid gay affair with each other is hilarious.

"Okay, seriously," Quinn says when she can finally breathe again. "I have to know what they're doing. We need to look at their computers."

"We need to send them on a mission. Something complex that will give us time to investigate."

"I'm on board as long as you don't send my husband to a crack house."

* * *

><p>Quinn and Sam invite Rachel and Noah to dinner. Sam is waiting at the door, like a little boy waiting for his friend to arrive so they can go play.<p>

As soon as Rachel and Noah arrive, the boys head off to "play video games". Rachel and Quinn aren't stupid. They know what boys playing video games sounds like and this bizarre silence is not it.

It's time to set their plan into motion.

Quinn "realizes" that she doesn't have enough of a certain spice to make her famous potatoes, a spice that can only be found at a store across town. Noah loves her potatoes, so it works like a charm.

Once Noah and Sam have left in search of spices, Quinn and Rachel rush upstairs to look at their husbands' computers.

They locked the door, but that won't keep either girl out. Quinn quickly picks the lock and they enter Sam's manly kingdom.

They don't even have to boot the computers up; the evidence is right on the screen.

Rachel just brings her hand up to cover her mouth, while Quinn mutters "Oh, my God."

* * *

><p>Rachel and Quinn are sitting at the kitchen table with the computers when the boys come back.<p>

Sam and Noah both stop dead, looks of panic on their faces

"We can explain." Sam says.

"I'm sure you can." Quinn arches her eyebrow.

"It's just that…" Sam starts, before Noah interrupts him.

"This is your own damn fault, Rachel. If you hadn't been so damn insistent that I watch your stupid little show and now I'm addicted. You made me an addict, Rachel." Quinn and Rachel finally burst out into laughter.

"Oh, my God! I just think it's hilarious that you and Matt shaved a kid's eyebrows off for watching Grey's in high school and now you're the webmaster of Grey's for Guys." Quinn says.

"You shaved a dude's eyebrows off for watching Grey's?" When Noah nods sheepishly, Sam runs his fingers over his eyebrows before saying, "Obviously, we can't let that get out. Our site will never be taken seriously."

"It could be good PR. I'm a total convert. It's a testimonial, dude." The boys quickly grab their computers and head back upstairs, leaving the girls downstairs laughing. "They just don't get it."

"Word."


	28. Puck Is Jealous

Puck loves his kid like crazy. He doesn't think he could love her more if he tried. She's tiny and perfect and beautiful and he just loves her.

But she's all Rachel. It wasn't obvious when she was first born. She had what Rachel calls a "traumatic birth". Basically she got stuck coming out. Rachel wasn't particularly pleased about it. But they just suctioned her right out of there. The thing is babies have these soft heads so that the whole being born thing is easier on everyone. Well, when Esta got stuck, the back bones of her skull pushed over the front bones, so she had this ridge. He'd never tell Rachel this but she looked more like a baby Ferengi than anything related to Rachel or him. And it was cool, everything shifted back into place and she looked totally normal within a few days. But she just sort of looked red and angry for the first while. He'd have been angry too if his head looked like that.

Now that she's five though, the fact that she's Rachel's daughter is so obvious.

Esta's got long dark hair, big brown eyes and a completely Jewish nose (sorry, kid). She's on the short side. Her voice is totally impressive and she dances. She's loud and smart. And sometimes the way she tilts her head or moves her tiny hands looks exactly like Rachel, he thinks he's gone back in time.

People comment on it all the time. Rachel's freaky Aunt Jo constantly tells Esta that she looks so much like her mother that it freaks her out. Which in turn freaks Esta out. It's a freaky little circle.

All their friends joke about it. Sam once said he thought that he could see glimpses of the mailman in her.

He wishes that she had a little piece of him somewhere in her.

* * *

><p>They've spent the evening at Sam and Quinn's place, and they ended up staying far longer than they should have.<p>

Rachel unlocks the door as Noah pulls a sleeping Esta from the car. She loves watching these little moments. Noah picks her up with so much care, brushing a piece of hair that's escaped from one of Esta's pigtails behind her ear before resting her head on his shoulder. He rubs one hand down her back before closing the car door and turning towards the house.

"I'm just gonna take her upstairs." He whispers.

"Just put her right to bed. She can sleep in her clothes tonight." She whispers back before kissing him quickly. "I'm just going to check the messages. I'll be up in a minute."

Rachel does a quick check for messages and makes a note to call her dads tomorrow. She makes sure that there's enough water in the bowl for Brindley, their dog, and then heads upstairs.

She notices that Esta's door is still open and light is spilling into the hallway.

Esta is fast asleep under the covers and Noah is sitting on the bed next to her, just watching her sleep.

"You think she's like me even a little?" He asks as he smoothes the hair on her head.

Rachel knew he had been bothered by a comment earlier in the evening.

When dinner had ended and the food was being cleared, Noah had told Esta to say thank you to Auntie Quinn before going to play with the other kids.

Esta had turned to Quinn and said, "Thank you, Auntie Quinn, for a wonderful meal. It was delicious." It was a completely Rachel thing to say.

"You're welcome, sweetie." Quinn had said to her, as the whole room erupted in laughter.

"You sure she's your kid, Puck? I'm starting to think Rachel just cloned herself." Sam chuckles.

Noah had laughed it off, but she knew he was sensitive about the fact that Esta looked so much like her.

"I don't know how nobody else sees it, but she's so much like you." Noah gives her a funny look as she sits down next to him.

"She's totally you, babe." He tells her. "Her eyes, her nose, her voice, how big she is, how she moves, that's all you.

"She may look mostly like me, but you're there too. Her eyes may be brown, but those little sparkly flecks, that's you. And that wave in her hair that's so pretty, that's you. Her sense of humour is all you. Her patience and the way she makes friends so easily has nothing to do with me. All the things that make her so special and that I love the most about her come from you."

Noah gives Rachel a small smile and then leans over to kiss her, just as Esta rolls onto her side towards them.

"We did do a pretty awesome job, huh?" Puck kisses Esta's head and flips off the light as they move toward their own room.

"We did. And if it will make you feel any better, I promise to brush this little guy's hair into a baby mohawk." She says as she places her hands over her stomach. "No one will doubt who he belongs to."

"See, this right here is exactly why I married you."

"Don't lie. You married me because you couldn't live without me."

"That too."


	29. Puck Keeps Feeding The Child Lemons

Puck loves kids. He always has. And he's great with them too.

He used to love taking care of his sister. He pretended she drove him bananas and that he hated all the times that he had to look after her because his mom was working the night shift, but it was all an act.

So now that everyone in the group of people that he and Rachel hang with have gotten hitched and have started spawning (some sooner than others), they're like the go-to babysitters.

They'll take kids for the afternoon or the weekend or look after them at group events. Any time someone needs a break from their kids, Puck is there. He's like a babysitting superhero. He should get a cape.

And kids fall into two categories. They're either all cute and cuddly or they're totally badass (in a completely innocent way) and funny.

Like Sam and Quinn's kid, Stacey. She's all blonde curls and blue eyes. And since the day she was born she's wanted to be held. She just curls up in your lap and it makes your heart melt a little.

And Mike and Tina's kid, who seriously never says a word, but last week performed at a piano recital in a top hat and tails. Show him someone who doesn't think a five year old in a top hat and tails isn't the cutest thing in the whole world and he'll show you someone who's dead inside.

Then there's Kurt and his husband, Lucas. They have this totally badass little girl. He and Rachel took her one Saturday so Kurt and Lucas could shop for Kelly's birthday. They spent the day at the park and then took Kelly home. When they got to the building, they step into the elevator with a guy in the ugliest pair of yellow plaid pants he's ever seen.

Apparently, Kelly thinks so too, 'cause she just opens up her mouth and says in her high pitched voice, "Mister, those are the ugliest pants I've ever seen." Rachel gets all embarrassed and makes all sorts of "kids say the darndest things" apologies. Puck just laughs and gives Kelly a high five and a kiss on the cheek.

Finn and Santana have two kids. Lola's five and Alex is three. He and Rachel have them for the weekend and they take them to the toy store. They're standing in the middle of the bike aisle and Rachel and Lola are talking about the streamers on a bike. He's got Alex's pudgy little hand in his and they're looking at trikes.

All of a sudden Alex groans and says, "Oh, no! My penis is growing."

Lola's halfway down the aisle and can't hear him properly, "What did you say?"

Alex sighs, like it's the biggest hardship in the world to have to repeat himself and says really loudly, "I said, Oh, no! My penis is growing."

Lola and Rachel both look equally horrified and disgusted. Puck just laughs while Rachel explains that we don't talk about our private parts in public.

When Finn and Santana pick the kids up, Puck tells Finn he might want to start talking to Alex about running over mailmen.

And now that they're gonna be having a kid of their own, Puck's getting in all the practice he can with babies.

So when they head home for the holidays and his mom's famous holiday open house, he totally zeroes in on his nephew.

His mom has hosted this holiday open house every year since his dad walked out. It was her way of celebrating the fact that they had made it through the year without him. Over the years it's become the hot ticket party in town. His mom makes awesome food and it's a really great time.

Plus this party has a huge success rate when it comes to matchmaking. Every major hook-up, engagement, birth announcement (probably some conceptions too), or first meeting has happened at this party. He's not gonna name them all, but he and Rachel totally got together at this party.

Anyway, a couple years ago a new doctor from his mom's ward got invited to the party. His sister took a total shine to the dude (he's Irish, chicks love an accent). Now she and O'Dreamy (Rachel's nickname for him, but it kinda stuck and what the hell is an Irish doctor doing in Lima?) are married and they've got Liam, who Puck thinks is hilarious.

He seriously loves this kid. He loves all kids, but Liam's his nephew. The kid's so chubby, it's awesome. His thighs are like all chub and they've got these cute little rolls and creases at the knees. And when he smiles, and he does all the time 'cause he's a happy kid, his cheeks just puff up and like eclipse his eyes. Kid's a total tubbo, but he and Sarah were both fat babies and they both look awesome now, so between the Puckerone and the O'Dreamy (dude's built) genes, Liam's gonna be a total stud. Besides there's nothing cool about a skinny baby.

And the boy eats like a champ. Seriously, that kid could eat for England. But he's totally lazy. Like, he'll sit there with his fat little arms hanging over the side of the high chair and you offer him a cookie and he just leans forward and opens his mouth. Like you're gonna sit there and feed him a cookie while he just sits there.

Anyway, he grabs Liam the minute his sister shows up.

They spend most of the night in the kitchen. Liam toddles around for a bit and then starts squawking and trying to get grabby with the food. So he plops him in the high chair and feeds him some of the food that Sarah brought for him, then starts sneaking him some of the goodies.

He and Finn are talking about Alex's latest adventure and he's watching Liam out of the corner of his eye. He's not entirely sure how it happens but suddenly Liam's got a lemon wedge in his pudgy hand. Puck makes a move for it just as Liam shoves it in his mouth.

The kid's face puckers up something fierce and Puck grabs the wedge from him. Liam's eyes are screwed up, his lips are just this tiny tight pucker between his massively fat cheeks. Puck and Finn laugh and Liam's eyes open. And then his mouth opens and his head moves forward. That's Liam for "more".

He and Finn spend the next half hour feeding Liam lemons. They have a huge crowd watching, even Sarah and his mom think it's hilarious.

The crowd thins pretty quickly when Rachel shows up. She immediately "rescues" Liam from his "evil" Uncle Noah. She keeps going on about how awful it is to treat a poor baby that way. She's been all emotional and fierce since she got pregnant.

He just can't wait until he's got his own kid to amuse him.


	30. Puck Sees Information And Pamphlets

They're kind of in that zone. The weird friends zone.

See, he likes her and he's pretty sure that she likes him but nobody's making a move. He doesn't want to sound like a pussy, but he's been rejected enough that he's not totally into being beat down again. Not that Rachel would be a bitch about it.

They've been hanging out a lot. And Rachel's kind of awesome, even if she does talk all the damn time. It started with working on something for glee, and then he noticed that she eats alone since Santana went all psycho and almost clawed Rachel's eyes out for looking at Finn the wrong way or some shit.

So he eats with her and then they have history together. It just makes sense to walk together. He does not carry her books or anything douchey like that. (Just that one time when it looked like the weight of her backpack was gonna tip her over.)

And when Puck's hanging out at her locker, he can't help it if he sees what she keeps in there. It's mostly just her usual crazy ass stuff, colour coded binders and schedule, creepy animal calendar, framed photo of Barbra. But then he notices a couple pamphlets about plastic surgery.

"What the hell is this?" He asks her angrily, as he pulls the pamphlet from her locker. She's totally the hottest girl he knows, and he thinks if she changes anything she won't be as hot. 'Cause it won't be real.

"It's nothing." She says quickly, trying to grab the papers back from him. He skims the text and he realizes this is about nose jobs.

"A nose job isn't nothing, Rachel." He tells her seriously. She finally manages to take the papers from him. "You don't need one you know."

"I know I don't need a nose job. I realize my nose may be reflective of Jewish heritage, but I believe in authenticity in every aspect of my life." Well, that's good, he guesses.

"Then why'd you have those?"

"Noah." She says it all quietly like it's obvious. And then the light goes on.

He sees Santana at the end of the hall. He's at her locker before he even realizes he's left Rachel's.

"What the hell is your problem?" He demands. Santana turns quickly from the Cheerio she's talking to and pulls her head back quickly, letting Puck know that she doesn't like the way she's being spoken to.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. What the fuck is this?" He shoves the pamphlet he didn't realize he was carrying in Santana's face. Santana laughs like the bitch she is.

"I just thought Yentl's vision might improve if she got rid of that ski hill in the middle of her face. I wouldn't want her to miss me moving in on her man."

"Listen up, you little bitch." He says just quietly enough that no one else can hear him. "Just because everything about you is fake doesn't mean that everybody else is that way. So back the hell off."

"You think that just because you've got wood for her, she's gonna give you the time of day? She's just biding her time until Finn takes her back, which is never gonna happen as long as I'm around."

"And I'm gonna be around protecting her. So watch your back." He tells her before going back to Rachel's locker.

"Noah!"

"I know. You hate it when I pull crap like this, but she's gotta learn. No one messes with my girl."

"I'm your girl?" She asks, looking up at him from under her lashes.

He guesses that now that he's said that much, he should probably just man up and tell her he likes her.

"If you wanna be." He shrugs.

Rachel doesn't answer him, just attacks him with her lips. So he guesses she's his girl.


	31. Puck Steals A Baby

Rachel looked at her watch as she exited the subway nearest to her apartment. Four hours. She'd promised Noah she wouldn't be more than an hour. He was going to kill her.

As she hurried down the street, she wondered what state she would find him in when she got back.

Finn and Santana had reluctantly left their six-month-old daughter, Lola, with Noah and Rachel for the week. Lola had been a very unexpected blessing for the couple, and they hadn't had time to go on a honeymoon after what Noah insisted on calling "the world's fucking scariest shotgun wedding." Rachel had gladly taken the week off work to care for Lola.

However, this afternoon there had been a problem at the theatre, and Rachel, being the consummate professional, had agreed to go in for an hour. Things had snowballed once she got there and she ended up staying until intermission.

Rachel nervously entered the building she and Noah lived in. As she exited the elevator and made her way down the hall she was relieved to note that she couldn't hear either the baby screaming or Noah cursing.

The apartment was almost completely silent when she walked in. Rachel slipped her shoes off, set her bag under the hall table, and hung her coat on a hook before setting out to look for Noah and the baby.

When she found them, she had to take a moment to take the scene in. The TV was playing CNN at a low volume. Noah was laying on the bed with his eyes closed and no shirt on. Lola was sleeping soundly on his chest with her head resting over his heart.

Just as Rachel turned to go find her camera, Noah's eyes flicked open.

"Hey." He whispered.

"Hey. Sorry I took so long."

"S'no problem. Lols and I were fine."

"I can see that. Why are you watching CNN? You hate this channel." Rachel climbed into the bed next to Noah and gently ran her finger down Lola's cheek.

"Girl's got a thing for Anderson Cooper."

"She's starting young. That must be a little bit of Santana coming to the surface."

"At least she won't be as stupid as her pops."

"Noah, that's a terrible thing to say!" Rachel was scandalized. Noah chuckled lowly. Lola made a slight whimpering sound. Rachel and Noah held their breath, but she just brought her hand up to rub her face before resting her hand on Noah's chest and snuggling down.

"S'harsh, but true. Finn's my bro, but he's a moron. Doesn't matter anyway. We're not giving her back."

"Excuse me?" Rachel looked even more scandalized than she had before.

"She's awesome. All tiny and warm and cuddly. And she smells awesome. I say we pack her up, head to the airport, fly to some fucking fantastic beach, and never come back."

"I think her parents might object to that."

"Too damn bad. They shoulda thought about that before they left 'er here."

"Assuming I agree to this asinine plan, I think the amber alert Finn and Santana will have the authorities issue when they realize that we've absconded with their daughter might prevent us from reaching our destination. And I personally have no desire to be incarcerated. It's bad publicity."

"Fine." He grumbled before pressing a kiss to Lola's head and breathing in her baby smell as he closed his eyes. "Then we should get one of our own."

"What?" Rachel thought her heart might have stopped. They had danced around the topic of kids in a vague, maybe someday when our careers are off the ground, and we have some sort of financial security, type way. She's been waiting for him to bring it up. She didn't want to pressure him, but she wants to have babies soon.

"Serious, Rach. We've been married for almost three years."

"My career is..."

"Don't take this the wrong way, but screw your career, Rach. There's always gonna be another role and another show and we're gonna end up 40 and kidless, with only a wall full of Tonys to show for it."

"You think I'm going to have a wall full of Tonys?" Rachel asked him with tears in her eyes. Her career is obviously important to her. She desperately wants to be able to do both, be a mother and a Broadway legend.

"Hell, yes, but that's not the point." He opened his eyes and turned to look at her. "You wanna get knocked up?"

In response Rachel gets up and walks into their bathroom. She opens the medicine cabinet and pulls out her birth control pills. She walks back into the bedroom, opens the drawer of Noah's nightstand, pulls out the condoms and throws them in the garbage can next to the bed.

"Once Finn and Santana pick up Lola, I'm all yours." She tells him.

"Fuck that." He says getting up slowly. Noah goes to the spare bedroom, where they've set up Lola's crib, and sets her in it. "Get naked. We've got work to do."

* * *

><p>When Finn and Santana show up the next day to pick up Lola, Rachel is in the middle of changing Lola's diaper. Finn immediately went back to see his daughter, leaving Noah and Santana in the front hall.<p>

"So?" Santana asked.

"Worked like a charm. She'll be pregnant by the end of the month."


	32. Puck Trying To Teach His Four Year Old

"Okay, Lily and I should be home before dinner, but if we're not, there is a casserole in the freezer, just heat the oven to 450 and cook for 45 minutes." Rachel tells Puck while their daughter ties her shoes.

"I think I can manage dinner for one night. The kid's not gonna die if he has KD one time."

"Kraft Dinner is hardly a suitable meal for a growing boy." Puck just chuckles while he hands Lily her coat.

"I lived on KD and I turned out okay."

"That is entirely debatable." She gives him a quick kiss on the cheek while she ushers Lily out the door. "Just try to stay out of trouble."

"I make no promises." Puck tells her as she unlocks the car and makes sure Lily has her seatbelt done up before closing the door and rounding the car.

"Will we at least have a house to come back to?"

"I make no promises." He watches Rachel get in the car and back out of the driveway. Once he can't see the car anymore, he heads back inside and closes the door.

He makes his way into the family room where Jack is currently sitting on the floor in a pair of Spiderman pajamas watching Sesame Street. With a pink blanket in his grasp.

He'd told Rachel that they should buy new baby blankets when they had a boy, but Rachel was all about being thrifty. She'd said a baby wouldn't know the difference between a pink blanket and a blue blanket. He shoulda gone with his gut.

The thing is Jack really liked the satin edging on the blankets. Anything that had that sorta texture drew him like a moth to the flame. As a baby, he couldn't sleep without a satin edged blanket up against his cheek. He still couldn't really.

When he was just learning to walk, if Rachel was folding clean laundry, he'd root through the basket until his hands closed around something with that texture. Usually some ballet outfit of Lily's.

One time, they'd gone to the mall to run errands. Lily had been at a birthday party. But they had Jack with them, sitting in his stroller, sucking on his soother and humming to himself. They'd been about to leave when Rachel said she needed to make a quick stop in the lingerie department. He's always up for a trip to help his wife pick out underwear, so off they went.

Turns out she just needed boring everyday underwear. Tease.

He's totally tuned out, just pushing the stroller and looking at all the sexy underwear on the other side of the aisle and half listening to Rachel talk about…something. He turns around when she starts laughing hysterically, only to find his son rubbing a pair panties against his face.

He does not think this is funny. This is the kind of thing that weirdo pervs like Jacob Ben-Israel started their stalking careers with.

He rips the panties out of his son's fat little hands and wheels that stroller out of there, leaving Rachel laughing in his wake.

Jack is bawling his eyes out, his mouth popping open in shock allowing the soother to fall out. And he hates it when his kids cry. Especially if it's because of something he's done.

Once they're safely clear of the store, he finds a bench and pulls Jack out of the stroller. He holds him close, offering him the soother, all in an attempt to sooth his son.

"One day, buddy, you're gonna thank me."

The point is this kid still has a thing for his blankets. And it's fine when the yellow and white ones are in rotation, but they've got this one pink blanket that his mom bought them when they had Lily.

It's time to get rid of that blanket.

"Whatcha doin', buddy?" Puck asks as he wanders toward the couch.

"Watchin' Sesame Street." Jack doesn't even move his eyes from the TV.

"How'd you like to do something with Daddy today?"

"Yes!" Jack scrambles from the floor and up onto the couch, dragging that damn pink blanket with him.

"Well, Jack, you're four now, and I think it's time that I teach you something."

"What?" Excitement is obvious in Jack's eyes.

"I'm gonna teach you to be a badass." There's a huge gasp from Jack's tiny mouth.

"Mommy says that's a bad word."

"Sorry, badbum. I'm gonna teach you to be a badbum."

"What's a badbum, Daddy?" Good question, kid. He glances at the TV screen and sees the furry, green form of Oscar the Grouch.

"Oscar the Grouch is a badbum." Jack's eyes are wide and horrified.

"Mommy says that Oscar is a bad boy."

"Well, who's your favourite?"

"Elmo. He's red." Elmo is so not badass. But he'll work with what he's got.

"And does Elmo have lots of friends?" Jack looks at him like he's nuts.

"He has lots of friends. Like Abby Cadabby. She's pink." Of course she is.

"Does he have any friends that are boys?"

"Grover. He's blue. But Abby's his best friend. My best friend is Mommy."

"Jack, Mommy isn't your friend." Jack's eyes start to fill with tears, and it's starting to feel exactly like the day in the mall. Danger, Will Robinson!

"Mommy is too my friend! She said so!" These two big fat tears roll down his cheeks and he pulls his blanket up and starts rubbing it against his neck.

"I just meant Mommy's your Mommy. Badbums have other friends."

"I don't wanna be a badbum! I'm a good boy. Mommy says." He's crying even harder now. Abort! Abort!

Puck pulls Jack into his lap and pulls the pink blanket around Jack, keeping the satin edge against his son's cheek.

"Mommy's right. You're a good boy. We'll do something else today. What d'you wanna do?"

"Can we watch Cinderella?" Oh, god, he should've listened to his gut.


	33. Puck vs Rachel's Pregnancy Hormones

Puck is holding Rachel's hand in his as they leave the bar. They stand in the parking lot in the aftermath of rain as they say goodbye to their friends. Santana heads to her car on the other side of the parking lot. Mike and Tina have parked beside his truck and they talk as they walk to their vehicles. He helps Rachel into the truck waving to Mike and Tina as they pull out of the parking lot before rounding the truck and getting in.

They're halfway home before Puck realizes that Rachel hasn't said a word to him since they left their friends. When they stop at a red light a block later, Puck darts a look at his wife. She's sitting in the passenger seat with her arms crossed while she looks out the window, pointedly ignoring him.

"What the fuck is the matter with you?" He asks as the light turns green.

"Nothing is wrong with me. I might ask the same question of you."

"Oh, fuck, I'm gonna need a beer." He mutters to himself.

"Oh, of course! What a hardship to have to get through a conversation with your wife without a drink in your system. Do you want to pull over at the nearest bar? Have a drink? Maybe you just want to grab a drink at the drive-thru liquor store so you can start right away."

"You're fuckin' crazy, you know that right? I'd never drink and drive, 'specially not with you two in the car."

"See, this is exactly what I'm talking about." Rachel is actually pouting now and she sounds like she's going to cry. God, this sucks ass.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He pulls the car into their driveway. Before he can even remove the keys from the ignition, Rachel has thrown the door of the truck open and is struggling to get down. He rushes around to help her.

"I don't need your help." She tells him dramatically as she finally manages to reach the ground and she storms into the house. Rachel immediately moves back to the bedroom.

"C'mon, Rach. Just tell me what I did." He's wracked his brain, but he has no idea what he possibly could have done to piss her off this time.

"You called me fat." He's pretty sure he never called her fat, 'cause he's not fuckin' retarded. And he hasn't been drinking, so it's not like he blacked out and just can't remember.

"When did I call you fat?" He's now using his best 'beware of wild animal' voice. If he doesn't navigate this situation very carefully, he could find himself without balls.

"Don't patronize me, Puck." Ouch, she only ever calls him that when she's super pissed. "You and Mike sang 'Fat-Bottomed Girls'. I know that was a dig at me." And then she bursts into tears.

"Baby, Tina just really likes that song and Mike wanted to sing it for her. I don't think you're fat."

"Really?" She looks up at him with hopeful eyes.

"Course not. The doctor said you've barely gained enough weight to be healthy. Nobody thinks you're fat."

"So I'm just a bad mother? Can't gain enough weight to keep my own baby healthy. Screw you!" Rachel slams the door in his face.

"Guess I'll be sleeping on the couch." He mutters. "This kid so owes me."

In the morning, he comes back from his run to find Rachel sitting at the kitchen table, scarfing down a plate of pancakes, eggs, bacon and hash browns. He's gotta be very careful.

"Morning." He leans down to kiss her forehead, like he does every morning. He's met with complete silence. "Rachel, I don't think you're fat and I don't think you're a bad mother."

"How can you not? You were right. I can't gain enough weight. I just eat and eat and eat. I feel like I'm the size of a barge and then I go to my appointments and they tell me I'm just barely at the acceptable weight. If I can't keep her safe and healthy now, when she's living inside of me, how on earth am I going to be able to take care of her when she's born?" Rachel is full out crying now, which is something he's gotten used to since she got pregnant, but he still fuckin' hates it. He pulls a chair up to hers and takes her hands in his.

"Rachel, you're keeping her safe and healthy right now. We're keeping an eye on your weight, and you heard the doc, the minute she thinks there's a problem, she's gonna get you hooked up to an IV and pump you full of all the stuff that the Pucklet needs. And you love her enough that you're eatin' fuckin' bacon. Which we are never telling my mother, 'cause she'll go batshit."

"But what about once she gets here? I don't know what I'm doing. Why did we think it was a good idea to have a baby? I'm not ready."

"You're ready. D'you think after Beth I'd have a baby with someone who wasn't ready? Who wasn't gonna be a fuckin' awesome mom? 'Cause we've got this, Rach. We're gonna rock this parenting thing."

"You really think so?" Rachel removes one of her hands from Puck's and wipes her eyes.

Puck places one of his hands on Rachel's belly and one hand on her cheek as he leans in to kiss her. "I know so, babe."


	34. Those Shoes Are Absolutely Gorgeous

They've been seeing a lot of each other lately. Eight years of almost nothing, and this will be the fifth time Rachel will see Noah in a year and a half. And every time they see each other, this flirtation goes a little bit further.

It starts when Mr. Schue asks them to do a glee alumni weekend to help raise funds for the current McKinley glee club. Surprisingly, everyone shows up. Rachel didn't think it was possible, but Noah has definitely filled out over the past eight years. His arms were impressive before, now they're positively magnificent.

The alumni weekend starts a sort of chain reaction. Tina and Sam hook up over the weekend, which leads to their next encounter.

Tina and Sam's wedding is beautiful. It's at this wedding that Rachel begins to appreciate the changes in Noah's physique, but also in his demeanor. He's still cocky and self-assured, dangerous and dirty, but there's a sense of stability and true confidence, the kind that only comes from being truly good at something. She learns that he works in Nashville at a record company. She gets a small feeling low in her body that she can't quite place when she hears that piece of information.

Brittany and Artie rekindle their romance at Tina and Sam's wedding. So the next event they attend is their wedding, which is truly interesting. Rachel hasn't seen quite so many rainbows for any event that didn't have the words "Gay Pride" in the title. Rachel uses this wedding as an opportunity to test the waters. She flirts. Nothing outrageous but she definitely gets a response.

Finn and (a slightly less bitchy) Santana's wedding is the next event that she sees him at. Nobody is supposed to know (but everyone does) that there's a baby on the way (which will be the next gathering). Rachel wears her brand new Manolo Blahniks and gets an extremely favourable reaction from Noah and a comment about her "fuck me heels". She has to stop herself from begging him to take her up against the nearest wall.

Rachel goes back to New York knowing that Kurt is planning a Jack & Jill baby shower and that she'll be seeing Noah in a few short months.

She has a mission.

She is not leaving Lima that weekend without going to bed with Noah Puckerman.

Rachel finds the perfect shoes. Shoes that won't make it look like she's on the pull at Kurt's formal baby shower but still scream sex. They're three and a half inches of purple perfection with the pointiest toes she's ever seen and little black bows at the heels.

Once she's found the shoes, finding the lingerie is easy. All she needs is a dress to go over top.

Everything is going according to plan until she gets to her dads' house and realizes that she's left her dress at home. Her perfect black dress is still hanging in her closet.

Rachel will not panic. She will simply look at the clothes she left in Lima and figure out an acceptable alternative.

All she comes up with is a red polka dot dress she wore as part of a glee number in high school. Truthfully, she doesn't care about the dress, even if it does make her look like a demented Red Hatter. All she cares about is the man that will, hopefully, be peeling this dress off her in a matter of hours.

She finds herself sitting at a table in the Hummel's backyard with Kurt, Noah, Santana, and two week old Lola. Kurt has just arrived from dealing with caterers when he notices her shoes.

"Rachel, those shoes are - surprisingly - absolutely gorgeous, and I know you think they make that outfit pop or whatever, but really, they don't go with _anything_ you're wearing."

Rachel takes a sip of her wine and looks Noah straight in the eye when she says, "But they do. You just can't see what."

Across from them Noah chokes on his drink.

"Oh, please, not in front of my baby. I don't want her to be scarred by your freaky sex talk." Santana says, holding the baby closer to her.

"Nothing she's not gonna hear from her momma." Noah says once he can breathe again. Santana vehemently defends herself and the conversation is steered away from Rachel.

Later, as she's getting ready to leave, Rachel is disappointed. She was sure her plan would work and she'd be on her way to a good orgasm by now.

She's just unlocking the door of her rental car when Noah appears.

"You really think you can get away with saying something like that and then leave without saying another word to me?" He asks as he comes to stand next to her, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear.

"You didn't seem all that interested." She says, shrugging her shoulder.

"I'd have ripped this dress off you if I didn't want to make a scene." He says as he fingers the fabric of the dress at her hip.

"There's nobody here now."

At the next event, her shoes still don't match her dress. But white is so boring.


	35. Puck's Love of Veronica Mars

Something strikes Rachel as vaguely familiar when she hears Puck sarcastically mention his feelings journal. But it's just that - vaguely familiar.

She completely forgets about it until a few days later when she gets her English essay back. She's in the same class as Puck and Finn. When Puck shows her his essay with a big red "A" at the top, he says, "Take that, high school guidance counselor." She thinks it's a little weird, but it could just be a coincidence.

Rachel has her suspicions when Mr. Schue asks Puck for a word and he replies, "Anthropomorphic. All yours, big guy."

But when Rachel hears Puck refer to himself as a "danger-loving, girl-touching rock star", she knows.

Puck watches Veronica Mars.

* * *

><p>Rachel decides she's going to catch him at his own game.<p>

When Puck gets caught playing a prank on Coach Sylvester, she tells him, "Noah Puckerman, you are just trouble. All caps, underlined, written in bold." He does a double take.

As Rachel is sitting down next to Puck one day at lunch, she looks down at his tray and says, "Fish sticks and chocolate milk. Yuck! That can't be good for you." Puck definitely gives her a funny look.

After accompanying Matt to his cousin's wedding, Puck asks Rachel how her date went. Rachel's reply is, "Oh, you know. Lousy conversation, but the sex was fantastic." This time Puck isn't the only person giving her a funny look.

Puck finally has to take Rachel aside after he makes a lewd comment about the size of his junk and Rachel responds by saying, "Well let's see it. I mean, if it's as big as you say, I'll be your girlfriend. We could go to prom together."

Puck grabs Rachel's arm and drags her into the hallway, leaving the glee room full of snickering teammates.

They stand in front of each other with their arms crossed. Puck figures he can intimidate Rachel, but the longer she stands there not saying anything, the more nervous he gets. Obviously, she knows. He knows she knows. He just can't figure out a way of getting out of this with his manhood still intact.

He finally cracks.

"Look, my mom watches it. She wanted us to bond...and it's not awful. She's, like, badass, y'know, for a midget."

"Oh, Noah. Veronica Mars is a wonderful show. She's a strong female character with a very strong sense of right and wrong. She's a role model to the young women of our generation."

"Right. I don't give a crap about that. Badass. S'all I care about."

"As your girlfriend, you could have told me you enjoy watching this program. It's another activity we can do together!" Rachel claps her hands as she says it.


	36. Rachel Made A Video Of She & Puck

Since Rachel started performing, her dads have been recording all of her performances so that she could critique herself. Both her singing and dancing have been vastly improved by playing back her performances and pulling them apart so that later performances can be pieced together without the flaws.

It's a method that she has adopted for other activities as well. Cooking, baking, housecleaning, gardening, and various social interactions have all benefitted from the tried and true Rachel Berry method.

Obviously, her fathers don't record her 24 hours a day (she asked, they refused), and it is difficult to record oneself while completing the task that you wish to critique. It became much easier once she installed digital cameras throughout the house that are activated by a motion sensor. All feeds are relayed directly to her computer. Every night she reviews the various feeds and burns them to DVD, which are sorted by date and stored in the hollow spaces beneath her floorboards (thank you, Lane Kim). The files are then deleted from her computer. It wouldn't do for anyone to find the videos.

* * *

><p>The first time it happens is an accident. She honestly had not been planning to have sex with Noah that day.<p>

They were supposed to be working on a glee assignment, but his hand had been trying to make its way up her thigh all afternoon. After two torturous hours spent trying to resist him, she'd finally given in. And really, once she'd had that first orgasm, letting him give her a second seemed like the only logical choice.

It was only that night when she was going through her daily feeds that she realized that she hadn't thought to turn the camera off before engaging in the afternoon's activities with Noah.

She was absolutely horrified and about to delete the video when she noticed the way her leg looked in the video. This had only been her first time and Noah had seemed very pleased with the way the afternoon had gone, but on seeing this video she realized he had to have been lying. He couldn't possibly enjoy having her leg do that.

Rachel prided herself on her strong morals and ethics, and she knew that it was completely unethical to continue taping someone without their knowledge. But Noah had a stash of pornography on his computer, so he couldn't possibly be opposed to videotaping one's intimate activities. She'd just record their next few encounters until she was absolutely positive that he wasn't lying, and then she'd delete them all.

She'd tell Noah eventually, once she got better at having sex.

* * *

><p>She doesn't understand. She's been recording her sexual encounters with Noah for three weeks now, and she is most definitely not getting any better. He keeps telling her how fantastic it is, but she just knows he's lying.<p>

Sometimes, in the throes of passion, she forgets that she's supposed to be working on improving her technique. It's extremely hard to concentrate when he's inside of her, touching her and kissing her. It's become painfully obvious to her that these are the times when he has to put the most effort into his lies. There is absolutely no way that anyone makes those sounds while having good sex.

She just doesn't understand, because to her it feels fantastic.

In fact, the harder she tries, the worse it feels. Just last week, while trying to keep her foot firmly planted on the mattress so as not to do that unattractive thing with her leg, she ended up with a cramp in her thigh and a twisted ankle. She's not entirely sure what happened, but Noah had his hand on her thigh and had been trying to move it. She really, really doesn't understand why he'd try to move it when it obviously can't feel good to have her leg doing that.

Then all of a sudden her leg was cramping and her foot was twisted under his body. She'd started to cry because everything just hurt so badly.

The worst part was he just kept trying to make her feel better. He'd massaged her thigh and strapped an ice pack to her ankle and then sat with her while she cried and watched a Sandra Bullock movie.

Noah's going to break up with her, she just knows it. And he should. He should have a girlfriend who's not terrible at sex. Sex is his favourite part of any relationship.

Maybe if she just avoids him he'll break up with her sooner. She might as well take the heartbreak while she's still limping.

* * *

><p>Puck's the world's biggest dick. He knows it and usually he's fuckin' proud of that fact. He's not proud of it right now.<p>

He and Rachel have been going out for eight months. He knew when he started going out with her that she wasn't just gonna jump into bed with him. He was okay with waiting. He had a wicked case of blue balls, but he was waiting and trying not to be a jerk about it.

They'd been doing other stuff, so it wasn't like the boys weren't getting any action at all.

But when he and Rachel actually do it, it's kind of an accident. He'd been handsy all afternoon. It was kinda fun making her cave, but he knew where the line was. Or he thought he did, because once he'd gotten her off she'd given him the go ahead.

He didn't rush anything and it would've fuckin' killed him to stop, but he would've, 'cause he didn't want to hurt her.

But things went really well. Really, really well. Like if he didn't know that she was a virgin, he never would've guessed. He didn't think he'd ever had better sex. She was like a fuckin' sex goddess or some shit.

Or he thought they went well. Because every time they did it since then, Rachel had been all tense and jumpy. So he hasn't been pressuring her, at all. He doesn't make girls do things they don't want to do. He only goes on green.

But she keeps giving him the green light and he's not gonna turn down sex.

After last week, though, he's done.

She does this thing with her leg that drives him crazy. Like seriously, he's gotta work twice as hard not to just let go the minute she starts doing it, but Puck likes a challenge and it feels too fuckin' good to make her stop. Plus, he's a greedy bastard so when she's not doing it on her own, he tries to nudge her in the right direction.

He's got his hand on her thigh, but he's getting a lot of resistance and then Rachel's making this fuckin' awful noise like she's dying or something. And totally not in the good way. Not something you wanna hear when you're balls deep in a girl.

He pulls out and realizes that he's crushing her ankle and she's crying. He'd felt like the world's biggest asshole.

Puck figures it out pretty damn quick. Rachel's been all jumpy and tense because he's been hurting her. She's tiny and he's basically been assaulting her.

He gets her dressed and wraps an ice pack around her ankle and massages her thigh, making sure to keep his eyes trained on the bruise that's already forming. Proof that he really is a bastard. Then he pops in "The Proposal" and holds Rachel until she stops crying.

Santana was right. He's a fuckin' terrible boyfriend. She's probably going to break up with him. And she should. She should have a boyfriend who doesn't beat her up. Sex shouldn't be an extreme sport.

Rachel's been avoiding him, and he can't fuckin' blame her. But he's gonna go over there and apologize and hope he doesn't kill her just by walking into the room.

* * *

><p>Puck goes over to Rachel's on Saturday afternoon. He knows that she has dance class, and he knows her well enough to know that she's going to suffer her way through dance class with her injury.<p>

He also knows that if he went to her house while she was home, she'd find some lame ass reason for why he couldn't come in. But if he's already there, it's a lot harder to get him to leave.

He's totally bored just sitting in her room doing fuck all, but he just sits in her desk chair and rolls around looking at her stuff. He's just rolling past her Grease Barbies when the chair catches something and starts to tip. He manages to stop the chair from turning over 'cause his reflexes are awesome (have you seen his guns?).

When he looks to see what made the chair stop so suddenly, he notices that the floorboard is loose. Puck tries to put the board back in place but can't get it to fit. He decides to pull it out, straighten it and put it back in. When he removes the board, he finds a row of DVDs.

Rachel's dads are like the most awesome parents ever. They totally don't try to stop her from doing anything, so he's not quite sure why she has to hide DVDs. He starts to think something's off when he pulls one out. It says "Rachel, Gardening, 06/05/10". He pulls out DVD after DVD with Rachel's name, an activity and a date written across the front.

When he gets to one that says "Rachel & Noah, SI, 11/09/10", he gets curious. He plops the disc into her laptop and waits for the video to fill the screen.

He doesn't quite know what the fuck to think when a sex video pops up. He feels kinda dirty, actually. And not in the good way.

* * *

><p>Rachel makes it through dance class, barely. As she drags herself through the door and up the stairs, all she wants is a nice, long, hot bath, some heat for her thigh, ice for her ankle, a cup of tea and some mindless television.<p>

She's pretty sure she's not going to get any of those things when she opens her bedroom door to find a very angry Noah.

"What the fuck, Rachel?" Her eyes quickly flit around the room and take in the image on her computer screen and the open floor.

"I can explain." She says quickly.

"Oh, great. A batnuts explanation. Go ahead." He bites out. Noah sits in her desk chair and folds his arms across his chest.

"I know it was completely reprehensible to record our intimate activities, but I just…I'm sorry I'm so awful." Rachel lets her dance bag slip off her shoulder as she slumps onto the bench at the end of her bed. Her eyes start to fill with tears and she angrily wipes at her eyes. "It was an accident the first time, and I really meant to tell you. But then I watched the video and I just thought…I'll understand if you want to terminate our relationship."

"Thought what?" He asks as he slowly uncrosses his arms. She's so upset about it that he's not quite sure why she has it in the first place.

"Why would you lie to me, Noah?" Rachel asks desperately.

"What? I don't lie to you, Rach. You know that."

"I thought I knew that. Until this."

"Until what?" He shouts, frustrated.

"About how terrible I am at sex." Rachel says it all quietly, so he knows she's not purposely being insane. She seriously thinks she's bad at sex.

Puck slides the chair over slowly so he's right in front of Rachel. He takes her hands and looks at the top of her head, because she won't look at him.

"Rachel, you're not bad at sex. You're totally awesome at it."

"You're lying! I know you are. There is no possible way that you can be enjoying it. My leg keeps doing this horrible thing and you keep making these sounds. I keep trying to fix it, but nothing is working. I'm just terrible at it."

"Okay, that leg thing? Fuckin' hot. Hottest thing any girl has ever done to me. And I didn't hear anything on your little video that didn't sound like me enjoying myself 100%. Don't you ever watch porn?"

"Noah!" Rachel gasps, finally looking up at him. "That's disgusting! I would never stoop so low as to watch other people engage in sexual activities."

"Says the girl with the homemade porn collection. I feel _violated_, baby." He lifts his eyebrow at her as she giggles. He gets a little more serious suddenly. "I thought I'd broken you. Does it at least feel good?"

"Oh, Noah, you make me feel so wonderful. My whole body just becomes so consumed with you that I can barely concentrate. I just wanted to be better for you."

"Babe, we rocked it the first time. Chillax." She's finally stopped crying. Thank fuck. He legit hates it when she cries. He leans in and kisses her, holding her face in his hands.

"I promise I'll make it up to you." She tells him when they finally come up for air.

"You wanna make it up to me right now?" Puck waggles his eyebrows at her.

"Um…"

"What?"

"My thigh is still quite sore from last time, and I think I made it worse in dance class."

"'S'okay, baby. We've got all this porn to watch. It'll keep us busy all afternoon."

"Noah!"


	37. What Are You Doing?

The minute Rachel saw the bus, she knew there would be trouble.

That's not even true. The minute Mr. Schuester said he would take care of transportation to Sectionals, Rachel knew there would be trouble. If Mr. Schuester ever bothered to listen to her, she would have been able to inform him that this was not the most revered bus company in the Lima area.

To be fair, the bus did get them to Sectionals. However, it broke down on a "shortcut" on the way back.

They are now standing by the side of the road while their bus driver, who apparently took fashion advice from Nick Nolte's mug shot, attempts to "fix" their bus. Judging from the fact that he had difficulty locating the engine, she thinks they might be here for a while.

* * *

><p>Puck doesn't want to fuel the fuckin' fire, but if Schue actually listened to Rachel, he's betting they wouldn't be standing on the side of the damn road while the guy from the Saw movies tried to fix their bus. Kurt's trying to help, but every time the dude picks up a tool, Kurt jumps a fuckin' mile. So they're gonna be here a while.<p>

It's not really that cold out, but he can see Rachel shivering. Maybe if she wore winter clothes once in a damn while, she wouldn't be so cold. But he'll be all gentlemanly and drop his arm around her shoulder, maybe cop a feel. Her boobs are probably cold anyway.

* * *

><p>When she feels the weight of his arm around her, the first thing she thinks is that this is some lame attempt to feel her breasts. Her second thought is finally some warmth.<p>

"If this is some feeble attempt to "feel me up", I should warn you now that you will be unsuccessful."

"Me? I'm just being a friend. I can take my body heat somewhere else." He tries to pull his arm away, but Rachel's little hand clamps around his wrist.

"Don't move! And stop smirking."

"How do you know I'm smirking?" He asks with a smirk.

"You're always smirking."

An hour later, his arm is doing her absolutely no good. She needs to be closer to him. So while he talks on his phone to his mom, she starts unbuttoning his coat.

* * *

><p>Puck looks down at Rachel while his mom blabs in his ear about how she'll be there in half an hour and she'll give a ride to anyone who needs it. He's kinda not paying attention because Rachel's undressing him. Okay, she's undoing his coat, but it's not far from taking his coat off to taking his pants off.<p>

He hangs up with his mom just as Rachel gets his coat undone and wraps her arms around him under his coat.

"What are you doing?" He asks curiously.

"Shhh." She giggles. "I'm warm. Now hug me."

"You're crazy, you know that, right?" He tells her as he wraps the sides of his coat around her as far as they'll go.

"Crazy, but warm." She tells him, burrowing further into him.

* * *

><p>When it comes time to organize transportation to Nationals, Mr. Schuester asks Rachel if she has any suggestions.<p>

Rachel scoots her chair closer to Puck's as she says, "Oh, Mr. Schuester, I think you should take care of it."


	38. You Can't Go Out Wearing That

Rachel is going to this party because she wants to make Noah happy. She wants him to think she's fun and that it's not her way or the highway. She truly believes that was what ruined her relationship with Finn. She likes Noah far too much to make the same mistakes with him.

But she hates parties. She's been to a few. There's always too much of everything: too much drinking, too many people, too much noise, too many inappropriate hook-ups. Rachel would much rather spend the evening at home watching a movie, even if it is something with gratuitous sex and violence.

Noah asked her if she wanted to go, and the way he asked told her that he really wanted to go, so she said yes. He's agreed to a limit of one or two drinks and that he won't pressure her to drink.

She's still dreading it.

Rachel is just putting the finishing touches on her hair and make-up when the doorbell rings. She hears her dad answer the door and send Noah upstairs.

"Babe?"

"In here." She calls out. She's just flipped her hair over to soften the curls, so all she sees of him when he enters are his feet.

"Nice view." Noah says, and she can hear the smirk.

"Don't be crass." She stands up straight and gulps when she gets her first look at Noah.

He's wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. Nothing special on any other boy. But on Noah? She doesn't know how she ever described his arms with such a simple word as lovely. Operas should be written about how his arms look in this t-shirt.

"Wouldn't be me if I wasn't. You ready?" Rachel can only nod.

When he turns around and she gets a look at the back of his jeans, she lets out a squeak. She's overcome by a strange urge to just reach out and grab his butt. It just looks...well, it's one of his best features.

"You okay?" He asks as he turns around.

"You can't go out wearing that. Please change?" She asks softly.

"What? Why?" He sounds confused. She'll admit she's been a little crazy about what she considers acceptable for him to wear when they go out with her fathers. To clarify, a tuxedo t-shirt does not count as wearing a suit to her family's favourite French restaurant.

"Have you seen your ass in those jeans, Noah? And the way that shirt shows off your arms? I do not want to spend my evening watching Cheerios drool over you."

"I always look like this. Can't turn off the hotness, babe."

"I know! And I love how good you always look, but for one night I'd like to pretend that you're not wildly out of my league. So could we please stop by your place so you can change?"

"Wait! What do you mean "out of your league"?"

"It's a baseball term. I thought..."

"I know what it means, Rachel."

"Then, I don't understand..."

"I'm not out of your league."

"Yes! You are! You're ridiculously attractive and people like you and girls throw themselves at you."

"Is that what you're worried about? 'Cause, baby, I'm only interested in you."

"Really?" Rachel asks quietly. Noah moves so he's right in front of her.

"Really." He gives her a quick kiss on the forehead. "Now let's go. I've gotta tell everyone you said ass."


	39. You Had Your Chance With Her

This thing with him and Rachel is still sorta new. So he's kinda not looking forward to Valentine's Day (like at all). Girls always get totally batshit about it. And it's not like he doesn't like Rachel, 'cause he does, a lot. It's just he'd rather stab himself in the eye than talk about feelings and do all that girly, romantic shit that girls want on Valentine's Day. Leave it to Finn to totally screw him over.

Really, the whole thing is Finn's damn fault.

See, right before the Christmas Dance Rachel found out about Santana popping Finn's cherry and they had this huge ass fight and broke up. Leaving Rachel without a date to the dance. She already had her dress, and it seemed like a fuckin' waste of her dads' money for her not to wear it. Besides, what good Jew would make another Jew go to a Christian dance alone? That shit ain't kosher.

And he actually had a good time. He fuckin' hates dances. They play lame music, and serve crap food and there's no booze. But once Rachel lets loose, she's actually kinda awesome. So, yeah, he had a good time.

And he'd kinda thought that she was gonna get all, like, clingy. But she didn't. She basically thanked him for going with her and then didn't talk to him again 'til school went back in January. And it totally sucked ass.

So when he asked her out, she'd looked legit shocked. Like she thought he was up to something.

So, yeah, they're, like, a thing now, or whatever.

The minute that Schue gave them this stupid assignment he knew that something bad was gonna happen. And he should totally listen to his gut. Like with that stupid Run Joey Run video.

Schue wanted them to sing a song that was emotionally driven.

He just knew that Rachel was gonna see Artie singing about how birds suddenly appear every time Tina's near and she was gonna want him to sing something all romantic or some shit to her. Hell, no. That ain't happening. To make everything worse, he actually had to present his damn project on Valentine's Day. What kinda horseshit is that?

After that bullshit at the beginning of the year where he almost got kicked out of glee for "lack of effort", he actually has to do the assignment and not just fuck around, 'cause he actually likes glee. It's kinda nice to belong to something where people actually give a fuck about what he thinks. But picking a song is a total minefield. He can't sing anything that involves love, 'cause then Rachel is gonna think he's like telling her he loves her (and he might but he's sure as shit not ready to tell her yet).

He and Rachel go through hundreds of songs on all the websites she bookmarks and visits on a freakishly regular basis. Rachel picks "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" from Evita, and nearly kills him when she sings the line anyone can hurt me and they do, 'cause he knows that it's true.

He's pretty much decided on a Daughtry song. He wants to make a couple changes but other than that it's ready, and it's gonna be fuckin' awesome.

Half the club is presenting on Friday at lunch and the other half is presenting on Monday after school. Rachel's on Friday and he's on Monday. Finn is also on Friday.

His girl totally rocks it. She does such a fuckin' awesome job that even Kurt has something nice to say about it, and that guy wouldn't know nice if it bit him in the ass. As soon as she's finished, she comes to sit next to him. He gives her kiss on the cheek and holds her hand.

Finn is up right after Rachel. Finn, the shit-disturbing bastard, decides to sing Phil Collins' "Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away".

It was one thing when he got all creepy and sang "Jessie's Girl" to her. It totally embarrassed her, but she was on the edge of breaking up with that douchebag anyway. She is not on the verge of breaking up with him.

Rachel's pretty much shrinking into her seat. She keeps trying to pull her hand from his, but he just keeps holding on tighter and giving Finn the evilest fucking glare he can manage.

When Finn finishes singing, Rachel's face is a shade of red he's never seen before, and he's said some stuff to her that would make Bob Saget blush. Plus, she looks like she might cry, which is not cool.

"Noah, I don't know what has gotten into Finn. I promise you I have not done anything that would give him any indication that I could in any way possibly still be interested in him. That door has been shut firmly and completely. I just..."

"S'cool, babe. Finn's just being a jackass. I'll sort it out."

"Please promise me you won't do anything rash or impulsive like start a fight, Noah." He grumbles a bit, but agrees.

On Fridays he hangs around after school until Rachel is finished with her dance class and then he gives her a ride to one of their houses for dinner. So when he sees Finn in the parking lot, he decides now is the time to set things straight.

"Yo, Hudson. What the fuck are you trying to pull?" He asks as he approaches him across the lot, his bag slung over one shoulder. Finn just shrugs.

"I'm just letting Rachel know I'm sorry, and I'm showing her she has options."

"You had your chance with her. You had your chance with her and you blew it! And now is my chance and I am not going to blow it because WE are meant for each other. So just back the fuck off!"

"You're meant for each other? You're just with her 'cause she's an easy mark. You're gonna find the quickest way into her pants and then you're gonna ditch her, 'cause that's what you do." It's a low blow and the minute Finn says it, he wants to punch him in his stupid, dopey face. But he promised Rachel and he doesn't break promises to Rachel. So he just walks away.

He decides he's gonna fight fire with fuckin' fire. He decides to spend the weekend working on finding the perfect song. He can't make Finn back off, but he can make Rachel happy, and as long as she's happy with him, nothing else matters.

Rachel's got some vocal workshop to go to this weekend, so he was just gonna be hangin' with Artie. Things got a little awkward after the whole Finn and Rachel break up, and to be honest Artie and Mike still aren't on the best of terms since the whole Cohen-Chang Chang thing. So Artie totally understands when he blows him off.

He works all day Saturday on finding the right song. He decides on a song by a Canadian band that Rachel loves (who knew those fuckers up north had all this great music that he didn't know about). He spends all day Sunday working on the arrangement. When he plays it for his mom (shut up, this shit has to be perfect and his mom fuckin' loves Rachel so she's not gonna lie), she legit cries.

"My baby's fallen in love with a good Jewish girl."

"Fuck, Ma! We're not gettin' married or anything."

"Yet. And watch your mouth, young man."

When he gets up to do his number (dead last), he makes sure there's no doubt about who he's singing this song for.

"Uh, this is for Rachel, who's, uh, makin' my day and givin' me reason to smile."

When he finishes his song, glee is over and everyone heads out as he puts his guitar away. Everyone except Rachel.

"You learned a Hedley song for me." She says quietly.

"S'an awesome song. Plus that dude's a total BAMF." That makes Rachel giggle so he feels pretty fuckin' good about himself.

"It was an excellent performance, Noah. You should be proud." He totally is, but he's more proud of the fact that he's got this awesome girl standing here and he's not looking for a way to cut and run. Fuck you, Hudson.

Rachel grabs his hand and starts heading for the door, but he tugs her back. She's looking at him with her big brown eyes and it's doing funny things to his insides.

"I meant it, y'know. I'm building this to last a long time."

"I know. It's why I'm going home with you right now, not Finn."

God, he definitely loves this girl. Maybe Valentine's Day doesn't suck as much as he thought.


	40. You Know I Was Thinking

Rachel has just had the most glorious vacation ever. Two weeks in beautiful Hawaii with her gorgeous boyfriend.

She and Noah have just arrived at JFK. The weather is absolutely freezing outside, and the only thing that's going to burst her vacation bubble faster than the weather is going back to her apartment.

So Rachel is extremely grateful to Noah when he gives the cab driver his own address, instead of hers.

Rachel hates her apartment. A few years ago, in an attempt to be independent, Rachel had decided to stop accepting money from her dads. It was time to stand on her own two feet.

Unfortunately, standing on her own two feet meant that she had to move into an apartment far below her normal standards. The place is small, her landlord is lecherous and nothing is ever in working order. The only good thing she can say about her apartment is that it's clean. She has never seen a rat or a cockroach. Either one of those things would have sent her straight back to being a kept woman.

Both Noah and her fathers had attempted to get her to accept help and move into a better apartment, but she had adamantly refused.

Now she could definitely afford something better, it was just finding the time to actually look for a place.

Noah, on the other hand, had landed on his feet. He lived in a beautiful, rent-controlled apartment above a bar run by an Irish family that treated Noah like family. Their daughter had lived in the apartment before she and her husband had started their family. The apartment was huge, with exposed brick walls, hardwood floors, a huge kitchen, and seemed to be magically located so as to receive as little sound as possible from the bar below. The best thing Noah had ever done was take a job at that bar.

"I don't want to go home." Rachel sighed as they entered Noah's apartment, after stopping to say a brief hello to Mrs. Foley downstairs.

"So don't." He tells her as he goes through his mail, while she looks in the fridge.

"I have to unpack and do laundry."

"I was thinking, uh, what if you unpack here?" He says without looking at her.

"Then all my stuff would be here." Rachel says, her confusion obvious.

"What if it was?" Noah asks, finally looking at her.

"I'd be running across town all the time. It wouldn't really make sense."

"Okaaay...What if you move in and understand what I'm saying?"

"You want me to move in?" Rachel asks quietly.

"You hate your apartment and I hate being away from you."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." Rachel squeals before throwing her arms around Noah.

"There's so much to do! I need to make a list!" Rachel pulls away from him and starts hurrying around the apartment.

"Your list can wait." He says as he snags her around the waist and pulls her with him to the bedroom. "As my live-in girlfriend, you'll probably want to test out the mattress."

"Of course."


	41. You Were The First One To Love Me

Puck has been overly considerate for days, and quite frankly, it's starting to make her nervous. He's been picking up his clothes and washing his dishes. Last night when she said she had a craving for soy yogurt, he'd gone to the store and bought her some (the good kind that you can only get at the organic store on the other side of town) and he hadn't even freaked out over her use of the word craving (the word gives him nightmares). She can't even remember he used the word 'fuck', a word that he uses the way some people use the word 'and'. He keeps calling her sweetheart, and not in his usual lecherous fashion, but in an endearing and slightly creepy type way, if she's being completely honest.

When she comes home from work to find him making her tofu stir fry, she's finally had enough.

"Noah, are you dying?" Rachel asks quietly, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

He spins around so fast that a mushroom flies out of the pan and adheres itself to the cabinet. "Of course I'm not dying. Why the hell would you ask me that?"

Rachel throws her hands up in the air. "Well, then what in the world is going on with you? You've been acting completely unlike yourself for days. It is really starting to creep me out."

"Creep you out? I thought this was what you wanted."

"When did I ever say that I wanted my boyfriend to be replaced by a Stepford husband?"

"Your exact words were, 'Noah, at this point in our relationship I have come to terms with that fact that you are never going to change.'" He parrots her in a high-pitched voice, while waving the spatula in the air.

"Firstly, I don't sound like that. Secondly, I think you misunderstood me the other night. Occasionally, I might wish that you didn't say some of the highly inappropriate and offensive things that come into your head, but I wouldn't change you for anything."

"Really? So I tell Finn he's dumber than a drunk Indian and you don't want me to change?"

"If I expected you to change for me, I'd have to change for you."

"You don't have to change anything about you, baby."

"Exactly, our relationship works because we love each other the way we are. You were the first one to _love me._" She tells him, stretching to her tiptoes to give him a kiss. Puck sets his hands on Rachel's hips and pulls her towards him as he rests his forehead against hers.

"Why d'you always say it like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like it's some sorta gift."

"Because it is. You're the only person in the world who loves me exactly the way I am, who wouldn't change a thing about me. You don't need me to be talented or smart, you just need me to be me. The way I just need you to be you: rude, loud and obnoxious."

"Damn fuckin' straight, sweetheart."


	42. You've Got Half An Hour

Rachel was really looking forward to prom. She hasn't been to one single dance throughout her entire time in high school.

She has always been single when a dance was on the horizon. And despite all her bravado, she never felt comfortable enough to attend by herself. It's fine if you have friends to spend the evening with, but as it has been made painfully obvious to her over the years, she doesn't have any real friends.

So after Finn breaks up with her for the fifth and (she is determined) final time, she realizes prom isn't in the cards for her.

Kurt calls her to make sure she's okay and tell her how disappointing it is that she won't get to wear the dress he helped her pick out. She completely agrees, but she isn't prepared to spend an entire night enduring her "friends'" thinly veiled insults and criticisms.

* * *

><p>He's been keeping an eye on her since the moron broke up with her again (what kind of douche breaks up with a girl three days before prom?). So he overheard her on the phone with Kurt and knows that she's planning on ditching prom. Which kinda sucks, 'cause she's basically the only one of these fuckin' losers he can handle. That's not totally true. Artie's his boy, and nobody can hate Brittany. Everyone else can go fuck themselves.<p>

So his plan is to take her himself. Except he knows that she'll never agree to go with him if he gives her any kind of notice. Rachel'll just tell him she's fine and not to worry about her. Like it's some kind of punishment to spend time with her. Girl be crazy.

So he finds out what colour Rachel's dress is from Kurt so he can buy the right colour corsage. Then he listens to Kurt talk shit about how romantic Puck (he's totally not) is and how he's always known that Puck had feelings for Rachel (he totally doesn't). He normally wouldn't put up with this crap, but his plan involves Rachel having absolutely no fucking time to back out, so he figures she's gonna need someone to help her get ready. Kurt's the only person he trusts not to fuck with Rachel.

* * *

><p>To deal with the disappointment of not getting to go to prom, Kurt plans a girls' day for them. They go to brunch at this fancy restaurant that they've always wanted to go to, followed by manicures, pedicures and massages at their favourite spa, and then a sleepover while they watch all their favourite chick flicks.<p>

Rachel has just pulled on her most comfortable pair of sweatpants and one of her dad's old sweaters, when she hears the doorbell ring. Kurt was in the kitchen making popcorn, so Rachel went to the door, hoping it was the pizza they had ordered.

When she opened the door to find Noah standing on her doorstep in a tux, she was shocked. She really thought that Noah was her friend. She couldn't believe he would do this to her.

She won't cry. She just won't. At least not while they're looking. She peers around him, trying to catch a glimpse of the others, presumably here to rub in the fact that she's not going to prom. She can't see anyone, but based on experience, that doesn't mean anything.

"Whatever you're here to do, can you please just get it over with?"

"I'm...what?" He looks a little startled, like she's caught him off guard.

"Whatever prank they've asked you to play, can you just do it now so I can get on with my evening?" She can tell that Kurt's watching from the doorway of the kitchen. She really hopes he's not in on it. She thinks she might need someone to cry to when this is over.

"I'm not here to play a prank on you." His face hardens a little before he continues. He'll deal with that another day. Right now he has a mission. "You've got half an hour to go make yourself look pretty, or whatever the fuck it is you do. Can't let a perfectly good dress go to waste."

For the first time, Rachel notices the corsage in his hand. A corsage that will perfectly complement her dress. She turns to look at Kurt, who just shrugs his shoulder lazily before continuing to inspect his manicure. She turns back to Noah.

"It's very kind of you to think of me, but you really don't have to do this. I'm sure you already had plans for this evening. You should go and have fun."

"Fuck that, Rach. I'm not gonna have fun thinking about you sitting at home, watching romantic comedies while you cry to your gay best friend, no offense," he says to Kurt, who just waves dismissively, "about how much life sucks. That'd pretty much blow. So get your hot ass into that dress, let Kurt do his thing, and let's blow this joint."

"Alright." She says reluctantly before allowing Kurt to lead her upstairs.

She comes back downstairs thirty minutes later wearing her fabulous rose dress. Kurt has curled and pinned her hair to perfection. Judging from the look on Noah's face, he thinks so as well.

When Noah places the corsage on Rachel's wrist, she places a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

When Rachel pulls away from him, he catches the knowing look in Kurt's eyes. Whatever, kid doesn't know crap.

Except when he's holding Rachel's hand, he thinks maybe he does.


	43. A Little Jealousy

Whoever this chick is, he's not interested. He's got a girl, thanks.

Santana invited them to her birthday party, and honestly, he was kind of over this scene, like, years ago. He and Rachel are not party people anymore.

So as he's trying to ditch this fake blonde with the obviously fake tits, he's also looking for Rachel so they can get the hell out of this place.

She's in the corner talking to Finn, and she catches his eye and smiles.

Rachel fucking smiles. He's over here talking to the living embodiment of Barbie, and she smiles at him like she doesn't have a care in the world.

* * *

><p>Rachel doesn't really understand why Noah is mad at her. He was silent the entire ride home for Santana's birthday party, and then stuck her with taking the babysitter home.<p>

He was fine before the party, so something must have happened at the party. Rachel just can't think of what she might have done. She did spend a good majority of the evening with Finn, but they've all been fine with the past for so long. She wouldn't be friends with either Santana or Finn if she and Noah didn't have such a solid relationship.

"Are you mad because I spent most of the evening talking to Finn?" She asks gently as she starts unpinning her hair and removing her jewelry. Noah has already changed and fed the baby. Noah scoffs as he paces the floor while burping their son.

Rachel turns to look at him, upset that he's so mad at her. "Noah, I honestly don't understand what I've done to upset you so much."

"Did you even see me tonight?" He asks. Rachel looks at him blankly. "I had a living Barbie doll drooling all over me, and you didn't even bat an eyelash! Like you weren't worried at all."

"Of course I wasn't worried. I know that you would never do anything to jeopardize our relationship. You love us too much." At that moment their son burps loudly, and Rachel takes him from Noah's arms, kissing Noah's cheek before pulling away.

"Still." Noah sulks, watching Rachel rock their son. "It wouldn't kill you to be a little jealous. Show that you're at least a little afraid of losing me."

"Noah, not worrying and being afraid of losing you are two completely different things." She looks down at their new baby, nine weeks today, and can feel the tears pooling in her eyes. "Of course I'm afraid of losing you. I'm terrified of losing you. You're so much a part of me that I don't know how I would function if you left me. But I can't live a life where I worry that every woman you talk to is going to lure you away from me. I trust you, and I trust the vows we made."

Rachel puts their son in his crib in the corner of their bedroom. She feels Noah wrap his arms around her and they stand their watching the even breathing of their son. Noah kisses her temple gently, and she knows that the subject is closed.

Sometimes nothing else needs to be said.


	44. Baby Foot

Since the minute Rachel told him she might be pregnant, Puck has been totally involved and on board. There was never a second's hesitation or any doubt in his mind. He was going to be the best dad he could possibly be, and that meant starting right at the beginning.

He and Rachel are not a couple that peed with the door open or while the other was brushing their teeth. They were both pretty clear on that from the minute they got married. But while she was peeing on a stick to find out if she was carrying their child, he was sitting on the edge of the tub.

They held hands while they waited for the test and were still holding hands when they read the results.

He has been to every doctor's appointment and every ultrasound. He has been to birthing classes and gone on a hospital visit. He has been shopping for maternity clothes and baby items, big and small. He has decorated the nursery, assembled furniture and baby-proofed their house. He has gone on midnight runs for crazy cravings and dealt with hormonal highs and lows.

Puck has taken pictures to document every step of this pregnancy. Every photo has been placed in the scrapbook that Rachel has started, with a date and measurement written underneath.

He could spend hours with his hand placed over Rachel's belly, feeling their child move. He's used to seeing Rachel's belly heave with their child's movements, to suddenly see or feel great movement from inside of Rachel. Nothing could have prepared him for what he is currently seeing.

Rachel has her shirt lifted up and their baby's tiny foot is pressing out, perfectly visible from tiny heel to five tiny toes.

And it is freaking him the fuck out.

* * *

><p>Rachel can't stop laughing at how freaked out he is by this.<p>

She was expecting him to freak out over something eventually. She was not expecting Super Dad to freak out over a tiny foot making an appearance.

"I don't know why you're laughing. You had a foot poking out of your stomach."

"It happens all the time. I've never seen a grown man move so fast." Rachel just thinks she's got herself under control, when she pictures how fast Noah had recoiled, and she starts laughing uncontrollably again.

"That's happened before?" He asks. "That can't be normal."

"It's completely normal." Rachel says through her laughter. "Elbows, knees, feet. It's crowded in there. What did you think you were feeling?"

"I didn't know it was like directly to you. I thought it was…like, waves from the water." At Noah's belief that amniotic waves were causing the huge movements that he loved to feel, Rachel starts laughing again. He eyes her belly warily before asking, "Do you ever see a whole face?"

She knows that he's picturing some sort of alien baby clawing its way out of her body.

"Noah! It's not like she has her face pressed up against a window." Rachel grabs his hand even though he tries to resist, placing his hand firmly on her belly as it gives another huge heave. "There's nothing to be afraid of, she's just stretching."

* * *

><p>He sits with his hand under Rachel's as she moves it around her belly, pointing out body parts she can identify.<p>

"She, huh?" He asks after he's calmed down a bit.

"It's just a hunch." She says, rubbing small circles over her belly as she smiles at him.

"Well, whatever it is, at least we know it has one perfect foot." Puck exits the room to the sound of Rachel's laughter.


	45. Beautiful Words Said By A Boyfriend

Puck's an idiot that messed around too much in high school to graduate with the rest of his class. So while Kurt and Rachel are living the life in New York, Santana and, surprisingly, Finn are at school in Philly, Puck is stuck in Lima doing another year of high school. The only other person who got held back: Brittany. There are no words.

Blaine offers to tutor him, and they end up being pretty tight. So when they both graduate, and Blaine says he's heading to New York to be with Kurt, Puck figures he might as well tag along. He doesn't have any college plans and as Blaine put it, he can have no plans anywhere, New York is just more appealing than Lima.

He and Blaine get an apartment in New York, near Rachel and Kurt's place. And before he knows it, he's in school and his whole life seems to be on track.

And apparently he's a together enough guy that Rachel doesn't turn him down flat when he asks her out.

* * *

><p>The summer after their senior year of college, Santana shows up at the apartment he shares with Blaine. His first thought is that he just wants Santana to disappear. She always manages to cause some major disaster in his life. He doesn't need that right now.<p>

He's busting his ass taking orderly shifts at the hospital until a full-time nursing position comes up. Yeah, he's a nurse. He didn't have the marks to get into med school, but nursing is just as important and truthfully, he loves it. He gets to spend way more time with his patients and he's not just diagnosing a problem or slicing and dicing. He's actually taking care of people. He's really hoping for a full-time position in Peds, but until then he's got a part-time gig in the ER and he's taking all the orderly shifts that the hospital will give him, making sure they know he's reliable and willing work hard.

He and Rachel have a solid relationship. He's totally in love with her, and he does not need Santana coming in and stirring up trouble.

But Santana is crying when she shows up, and the last time he saw her cry was when Karofsky accidentally outed her and her parents practically disowned her. He's not completely heartless, so lets her in and he and Blaine get the story out of her.

Turns out she and Finn have basically been inseparable since they got to college. He's her best friend and she doesn't trust easily, even less since Brittany (who is now married to Artie and has one kid with another on the way), so it's a big step. She's been committed to whole lesbian thing since she got outed, but she's hated every single one of Finn's girlfriends and he's hated every single one of her girlfriends. She just thought they each thought the other could do better. Until they got drunk when Santana's job ended and they ended up fucking.

Now she's confused about whether she's bi, straight or a lesbian, and she didn't know where else to go.

He may be 100% sure that he's straight but his best friend is gay, and his girlfriend's dads and best friend are gay, so he's pretty sensitive to the whole issue.

They call in Rachel and Kurt, and Santana is hustled off to girl-land.

Finn shows up a day later, worried about Santana and worried that she hates him, and he ends up shuttling back and forth between Philly and New York until Santana decides she's ready to see him.

Santana's a total mess, and surprisingly, Rachel is the only person that seems to be able to help her.

Finn is a disaster. He's really beating himself up about the whole situation.

Rachel eventually convinces Santana that she owes it to herself and to Finn to explore what they might have together, no labels. Santana is on board as long as she has Rachel and Kurt to back her up, and ends up moving in with them.

Finn drops everything and moves to New York just to be with Santana. Puck puts his foot down when Finn tries to move in with them.

* * *

><p>"My next boyfriend will know how to load the dishwasher." Santana says to Finn.<p>

It's just something Santana says to make it seem like their relationship isn't as serious as it is. It's been three years and the no label thing went out the window pretty quickly. Finn and Santana now live together and everyone knows that they're head over heels in love with each other.

"My next girlfriend won't make me load the dishwasher." Finn shouts back from the living room. Their little group of six is seated around Finn and Santana's dining room table, waiting for Santana and Blaine to come in with dessert. Puck can see Rachel tense in her seat at the end of the table.

Rachel hates it when Santana says things like that. Rachel hates it when people make light of serious relationships.

Kurt takes one bite of the dessert that Santana and Blaine made at the cooking class they've been taking and says, "My next husband will be covered in this so that I can lick it off his naked body."

"Too much, Kurt," Puck chuckles as Blaine blushes and everyone groans.

"My next husband will know the meaning of the word personal." Blaine laughs.

Everyone is sort of expecting Puck or Rachel to add to the "my next" round, even though everyone knows how much Rachel hates this game.

"The next girl," Puck can see Rachel glaring at him, "I will ever love on this earth will be our daughter."

Rachel's face breaks into her huge smile and the whole table groans.

"Please tell me that you're not going to turn into a sap after tomorrow." Santana asks.

"He's already a sap." Blaine stage whispers, "I don't think being married is going to change that."

The topic of conversation progresses to other things, but Puck catches Rachel's eye and winks.

No one else knows that their wedding isn't the only upcoming event in their lives.


	46. Can't Wait To See You

Puck gets that his girl is big time record executive. He gets that and he's proud of it. He gets that she has to travel. It doesn't mean that it doesn't suck.

He hasn't seen her in a month. Rachel has been checking on things in her European offices, and she's been on the road for over two months. The only reason he saw her a month ago was that he flew to Italy to surprise her for her birthday.

But it's been a month since he's had sex and he is dying. Because even though Rachel is willing to use technology to their advantage, there's only so much that phone sex and his hand can do.

So when Rachel texts him to say that the plane has landed, he can't find words to tell her how fast she needs to get home.

'Can't wait to see you babe. Hurry up and get here!'

Her reply is immediate, 'Whoo hoo! It's Friday. Screw the gym! I'm getting pregnant tonight!'

His brain stalls for a minute before he can manage to send a response, 'Uh…Shouldn't we talk about that first?' She can't just make that decision for them when she's barely ever home to begin with. What is she going to do? Cart a kid around like a briefcase?

'HAHAHAHAHA Oh my god. I wrote Pringles and it autocorrected to pregnant.'

'I almost had a heart attack.'

'Don't want that. Home in 30. Xoxoxo' Rachel texts back.

Puck drops his phone on the couch next to him and goes back to the game. It's only after another goal has been scored that Puck starts to think that he might have given Rachel the wrong idea.

He wants kids. He doesn't want her to think he doesn't.

He's still thinking the whole thing over when Rachel walks in.

"I will die if you're not inside me in the next 30 seconds." She tells him seriously as she starts removing her clothes, pushing all thoughts of babies to the back of his mind.

* * *

><p>Later, when they're lying in bed just talking, Puck decides to bring it up.<p>

"What you said in your text?" He questions.

"About Pringles? Do we have any? I didn't have one chance to get to The American Store the entire time I was over there. I could kill for Pringles." Rachel says as she moves to get out of bed.

"Wait." He grabs her wrist to prevent her from getting out of bed.

"We don't have any?" She asks, looking down at him.

"Yes. No. Yes." Rachel is looking at him like he's speaking another language. "Yes, we have Pringles. No, that's not what I was talking about. I meant about getting pregnant."

"Noah, relax." She tells him as she lies back down. "You're not going to be hearing the pitter patter of tiny feet anytime soon."

"I was just thinking maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing if you got pregnant." Puck says not meeting Rachel's eyes.

"So, if I lost my pills sometime…" Rachel says, biting the inside of her cheek.

"That'd be okay." He smirks at her, finally looking her in the eyes.

"You know, I don't know if I remembered to put them in my suitcase this morning." She giggles as Puck pulls her on top of him, and then rolls them over. She lets him kiss her for a few minutes before saying, "Now, about those Pringles."


	47. Little Boy & Girl

The entire glee club has been totally freaked out by Puck and Rachel's relationship. It's unnatural for a girl to date a boy that threw ice cold liquids in her face for over a year. But for the sake of club unity they're all going to this party at Puck's place.

Rachel is like a little hummingbird, flitting around Puck's house. She seems so comfortable with his sister and his mom. It's just weird.

Rachel, Puck and Puck's mom are all in the kitchen, while the rest of the glee club sits in the living room.

"It's creepy."

"So weird."

"I don't understand why a girl would do that to herself."

Everyone has something to say about the bizarre, but oddly normal, relationship between the club's resident badass and resident diva.

* * *

><p>Mrs. Puckerman walks into her living room just in time to hear the tail end of a statement about how weird it is that Noah and Rachel are dating.<p>

"It shouldn't surprise anyone. They've been best friends forever." She says, pointing to a picture on the wall.

This picture is her favourite picture of Rachel and Noah. And while there are a lot of pictures of those two in her photo albums, this picture will remain on her wall until she replaces it with the wedding photo she knows is coming.

As soon as she says the words, the whole room erupts.

* * *

><p>Once they manage to get everyone calmed down and his mom to go upstairs (like she promised before the party started), Puck and Rachel explain their history.<p>

"Noah and I have been best friends since Caleb Silverman…" Rachel starts.

"…hit Rachel over the head with the red plastic hammer in the nursery at Temple." Puck continues, smiling at Rachel, who smiles back, "Which was before we turned two."

"We were inseparable for years, really. All through elementary and middle school."

"'Til the week before high school, when Jacob," Puck spits the name, "asked Rachel out."

"And when I tried to let Jacob down easily, Noah got jealous and called me a freak. So I wouldn't speak to him…"

"And I threw a slushie in her face on the first day of school…"

"And even though he tried to apologize, I still didn't speak to him for a year, and he still kept slushying me."

"Until Beth," Puck avoids looking at Quinn, and Rachel squeezes his hand tightly.

"I realized that my best friend needed me, even if I was jealous."

"So we went back to being best friends."

"Which was all fine and dandy, except that…"

"We were madly in love with each other." They said together.

"And here we are." Rachel finished.

* * *

><p>Mrs. Puckerman eventually got the wedding picture she wanted so badly, followed by a wall full of photos of grandbabies.<p>

Long after Mrs. Puckerman was gone, the family would joke about Mom and Dad (and later Grandma and Grandpa) not being able to go anywhere without the other because they were such good friends.

But Puck and Rachel would look at that old picture every night and think that no one would ever know how much they had always loved each other. Except each other.


End file.
